The Tramshed
Project.

A landmark room, recast as a flexible home for food, work and gathering.

The opportunity

The landlord commissioned me to operate a landmark Shoreditch building on a meanwhile basis, at a moment when the whole industry was being forced to rethink what hospitality was for. An empty, well-known room; a city in flux; a short window to do something useful with it.

The strategic idea

A flexible home for dining, work and gathering, able to adapt as the rules and the mood of the city changed week to week. The brief was to prove hospitality could bend to a fundamental shift and still bring people together.

The constraints

Trading conditions changed repeatedly through 2020 and 2021. The operating model had to flex between dining, workspace and events without rebuilding the offer each time, and the programme had to keep giving people a reason to come to a building whose previous identity everyone already knew.

Outcome

The Tramshed Project ran through 2020–2021. Vitra later took the building and opened its London showroom there in September 2022.

“We will need places that enable us to adapt, while bringing us moments of edible joy.”