A former mission hall in London transformed into a textile designer's creative headquarters
Very often, the environment that a creative works in reflects their practice, but it is rare for the two to feel quite as intertwined as they do at textile studio Nest Design’s headquarters in Leytonstone. Just like the exquisite one-of-a-kind textiles that founder Lucy Bathurst and her team have been creating since 2010, the former mission hall they have worked in since 2020 artfully stitches together old and new. In Lucy’s creations, the jigsaw comes through the way hand-dyed linens are combined with antique fragments, while architecturally it emerges in the way a contemporary Douglas fir staircase rises majestically within the 19th-century structure. ‘It was a question of how we could respect the character of the building in a way that felt kind, as well as answering the need for a design studio,’ explains Lucy.
The crucial requirement for Lucy was enough height to cater for her often vast, modernist-inspired wall panels and curtains. ‘I saw this place on an estate agent’s website on a Friday afternoon and thought, You’re the one.’ A visit confirmed her instincts and then it was a case of organising the purchase. ‘It had been owned by four people, all in their nineties, one of whom was no longer alive,’ says Lucy, who finally got the keys in late 2019. Built in 1885, the building was initially home to the London City Mission, which used it until around 1910. It has had many lives since then – including as a clothes storage space, perhaps a cinema and, when Lucy came to it, a space shared by several religious groups.
The building itself – one massive double-height space – was impressive but wore the scars of its various iterations, with a clunky first-floor office, a crude partition wall slicing a window in half, strange hospital-style doors punched into its façade and blocked-up windows. Three dormer windows, as seen in a 1909 photograph, were gone, as were ornate finials along the roofline.
‘It just needed a rethink,’ says Lucy, who called on her friend, the architect James Stevens. They had met 18 years before when the pair had both worked for Retrouvius, the design studio known for its intelligent use of salvaged materials. James, who set up on his own in 2015 and now also runs Edinburgh craft gallery Bard, had helped Lucy with her Hackney terrace house in 2013 and the pair shared a similar philosophy. ‘James is entirely practical and I knew this was the sort of building he’d love,’ she says. ‘My first thought was that it had such exciting potential,’ he observes.
Lucy’s approach to her work is to ‘find a beautiful textile and imagine what it might become’. She took the same tack here, with James’s guidance. ‘I had a vague idea, but he blew it out of the water,’ she says. His vision centred around the creation of a first floor, sitting just above the ground-floor window line, to provide an enchanting workroom for Lucy’s team. ‘Unlike many ecclesiastical buildings, this one split into floors comfortably,’ Lucy explains.
James also carved out space on the first floor for a small, self-contained live-work space, complete with a niftily hidden bath. This is now reached via the staircase, which hangs down – almost defying belief – in the only remaining double-height space. ‘We nicknamed it Dumbledore’s office,’ says Lucy. The space downstairs was divided in two – one part of which is a double-height area that plays host to a studio kitchen, meeting table, staircase and mezzanine level. ‘I felt it was crucial to keep some of the full, soaring height to honour the original meeting hall,’ says James. This space leads through to the other half of downstairs: a series of rooms reached via an arched corridor – its shape inspired by the existing windows – which serve as showrooms for Lucy’s latest creations, including a new full-tester bed set.
Every intervention was done with reverence for the original fabric of the building, which was meticulously restored. ‘I work a lot with historic properties and always start by asking how a place can be made more like itself,’ explains James. Bricked-up windows were revealed, the three dormer windows were reinstated and the majestic rose window in Dumbledore’s office – long gone – was replaced. When the work began in May 2020, Lucy set up a sewing workroom for her team – one that could be moved around to keep out of the builders’ way.
When it came to the decoration, Lucy and James let the building lead them. ‘I offered colours up to it and it was either resonant or dissonant,’ Lucy recalls. ‘The upstairs sewing room had to be as calm as possible, so that it didn’t add to the chaos of the working environment. I agonised over the colour of the roof trusses up there, but finally went for an utterly unremarkable shade of white.’ Green was one colour she tried to bring in, but in the end the only space that would tolerate it was her office, where she relaid a green wool carpet that had been in her mother’s house. Budget restrictions also guided her choices, including the pigment-coloured raw plaster walls and floor created from a self-levelling screed, which was applied with a finish to mimic more expensive microconcrete. ‘Lucy’s brief was to use only the standard materials that you’d find at any builder’s yard, and I did a lot of sampling myself to get the colours and finishes right,’ says James.
Upstairs in Lucy’s office, a disco ball hangs above the seating area that, with the removal of an iroko panel, transforms into a bath. ‘It actually spins – James designed it and everything he does works,’ says Lucy. She’s right: the whole building works beautifully.
Nest Design: nestdesign.co.uk | James Stevens: bard-scotland.com
Ben Anders1/5In a showroom, walls lined in what Lucy calls ‘Brutalist verdure’ tapestries created from scraps – her take on 18th-century designs – set off her new full-tester bed set with vintage linen curtains.
Ben Anders2/5One of two ground-floor display spaces with Lucy’s signature curtains and wall hangings.
Ben Anders3/5
Ben Anders4/5The sewing workroom.
Ben Anders5/5
