A new studio for graphic designers A Practice for Everyday Life. Apfel is located over two floors of an existing building in the Old Bethnal Green Road Conservation Area. This former workshop building is part of the Winkley Estate, a complex of dwellings, factories and yards that provided accommodation to the expanding Shoreditch furniture trade during the late 19th Century. The brief was to sympathetically refurbish and modernise the building, bringing the previously damp, dark and cramped lower ground floor into use. An elevated timber floor and staircase provide a simple and cost-effective way of creating the necessary workspace. As this is split across two floors, a set of incisions into the new floor join both workspaces into a single studio environment. This helps facilitate and promote a culture of collaboration, providing light filled workspace on both levels. A suite of furniture pieces makes use of the client’s existing stock, and are constructed from standardised materials, dimensions and finishes. Timber and jointing methods are generally left exposed, and the paint finishes selected act as a backdrop to the colour and variety of studio life and work. Recycled glass surfaces line the route to the back of house activities, in the form stair tread, worktop and splashback. Bespoke grills cover the window units, replaced or restored, and signpost the new inhabitants with a graphic treatment.