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Location: Southbank Place, London

Interior Design: Portia Fox Design

Developer: Canary Wharf

Construction: Canary Wharf Contractors

Photography: Julian Abrams

Portia Fox Design set out to create a home with energy and soul, to inspire conversation and reflect the culture and spirit of the South Bank. It was vital to create a layout that really captured the flexibility of the Entertainment space designing a beautiful and functional space which focuses on the exceptional views over London’s skyline.

The team at Portia Fox Design started by looking back at the incredible surrounding history, the passed industries in the nineteenth century such as coal wharves, timber yards, potteries, dye works, lime kilns, blacking factories and printing houses, which all provided great inspiration from a materiality and palette point of view. Throughout the apartment there are subtle references with open grain blackened timber, dyed straw and hammered and blackened bronze finishes and a bespoke printed leather. The highest quality materials were selected and some of the most talented artisans in the UK were used to ensure the creative and contemporary design worked.

Known to this day for Theatre and Art, the original music Halls and fringe Penny Gaff’s that sprung up in the early nineteenth century, made the South Bank known as a place with no artistic restrictions or censorship, so Portia Fox Design felt that this offered an opportunity to be experimental with their design decisions, again with a view to creating pieces that inspire conversation.

The designers wanted the palette to reflect the vibrancy of the South Bank which you will see in the main Living and Entertainment space. It was important to create a calm and relaxing Master Bedroom so whilst sill quite experimental in terms of the design, the palette is much softer and more muted. The Brutalist architecture of the area inspired a sculptural and bold approach to some of the pieces within the apartment, with a focus on playful geometric shapes and textures. Attention to detail has been paramount to achieving the highest quality of finish whilst pushing boundaries creatively.