The multi-award winning Angel Building in London’s EC1, a former BT exchange, has been completely transformed by development company Derwent London into a striking, ultra modern office complex. On a prominent but under-used site at the corner of St. John Street and Pentonville Road in Islington, it now contains 260,000 square feet of high specification office space with café, specially-commissioned works of art and large rooftop terraces affording spectacular views over London. Only the existing concrete frame of the old building was retained; re-wrapped with a highly energy-efficient glazed skin.
The remarkable transformation of the old 1980s commercial block has been recognised amongst Britain’s most innovative new buildings and placed on this year’s shortlist for the prestigious RIBA Stirling Prize for architectural excellence.
Eventually the building will house several commercial tenants and one of the earliest to take up residence was Cancer Research UK. By relocating to the Angel Building, this high profile charity was able to bring all London-based staff together in a single central London building, reducing overall operating costs and increasing efficiency.
Signbox were nominated early on by AHMM, the appointed architects for the building, to complete all the ‘base’ signage for the building including external, floor, wayfinding and emergency.
Impressed with the quality of this work, Cancer Research UK agreed that Signbox should complete all their interior signage. Working in conjunction with the charity’s lead architects HLW International and brand guardians the Conran Design Group, Signbox designed, manufactured and installed a tailor-made signage and manifestation package. Now fully implemented, the work extends to branding signage, wayfinding signage, large format impact walls and extensive manifestation applications. One of the unusual features created by Signbox was a series of projecting LED illuminated light boxes fabricated in acrylic. These formed a timeline highlighting the advances made in cancer research over the past 100 years.
Mark Bartlett, Managing Director of Signbox, comments, “We were delighted to be appointed by AHMM to undertake all the base signage for this award winning development. This in turn led to the signage contract for Cancer Research UK. Everything we did was bespoke, especially created to complement the building and meet the specific needs of Derwent London and Cancer Research, both of whom have provided very positive feedback on our work”.
Since the installation for Cancer Research UK Signbox has extended its presence in the Angel Building having won the contract to install bespoke signage for the building’s newest tenants to be announced later this year.
