A Full Office Building That Can Be Taken Apart & Moved Like Flatpack Furniture

Image via IF_DO

When this building’s owners move, it will probably move with them.

To support the work of small businesses and community groups in the area, the Southwark Council enlisted architecture studio IF_DO to design an office building at a once-bustling but now-redundant district.

The structure sits on a so-called “meanwhile space,” a vacant area set aside by the local council for businesses to move into until officials come up with a more concrete plan, Fast Company reports. It was developed by a nonprofit called Meanwhile Space CIC, which constructs affordable offices out of temporary spaces.

The Hithe, as it is called, is a £400,000 (US$528,000), 200-square-meter (2,152-square-foot) incubator that’s destined to stay in its Rotherhithe location for up to 11 years before possibly moving elsewhere, so it has to be fully demountable and relocatable.

It’s constructed with a timber frame and lightweight steel connectors, and because the structure resides on existing foundations, there is little need for concrete.

When The Hithe is due for relocation, the connectors can be unbolted and the timber can be removed. The office building is made to last for about 50 years, so it’ll stand solidly at its next holding site too.

“It’s like a complicated piece of flatpack furniture,” Thomas Bryans, IF_DO director, tells Fast Company.

For now, The Hithe—with its 12 micro-units plus communal space—is happily supporting the ins and outs of businesses like a skincare company and a sewing class.

Image via IF_DO

Image via IF_DO

[via Fast Company and Architect’s Journal, images via IF_DO]