The Customer Service Centre for the London Borough of Hackney consolidates the Local Authority’s social support departments into one building providing a place of interaction for the borough’s residents.

Pascall+Watson’s team provided architectural and acted as lead design consultants for RIBA Stages E-L.  The 16,000m² building is highly transparent and open, configured as a 5-storey concrete frame wrapped around a central atrium, with a ground floor that is fully open and accessible to the public. This public realm offers clear views into the open plan administrative offices on the upper four floors and houses a cafe, meeting places, searchable archives and customer service areas, staffed by registrars who engage with the community. The upper floors feature a combination of open-plan administrative workspaces, meeting rooms and break-out areas.

The BREEAM Excellent rated building’s sustainable and low carbon features include integrated photovoltaic cells, a pellet-fuelled biomass boiler, highly insulated modular external wall panels and evenly distributed daylighting to reduce supplementary illumination. A sedum roof increases the thermal property, regulates rainwater drainage and attracts biodiversity to the heart of Hackney.