For a better world: In conversation with Pearson Lloyd

This article first appeared in Mix Interiors #231

Words: Chloé Petersen Snell

Tom Lloyd greets me at the Pearson Lloyd studio, pruning a plant outside the retrofitted Victorian Yorkton Workshops. Designed in collaboration with Cassion Castle Architects, the building is split into two halves, Victorian and modern, and original features and materials have been retained – and celebrated – wherever possible, says Lloyd. For the multi-hyphenate designers, Yorkton Workshops presented the perfect opportunity to demonstrate its design philosophy in action by applying it to their own workspace.

Moving into the space peak-pandemic, the easiest approach would have been to knock it down and start from scratch, Lloyd notes, but it was agreed that restoring and retrofitting the building would be a far more sustainable, low-carbon approach as it would preserve the embodied carbon in the existing structure. Downstairs, a wood-fragranced workshop is filled with furniture in various forms and stages of making and prototyping. Opposite, friends of the studio Arrange Whatever Pieces Come Your Way are setting up a quilt exhibition in the brick-walled events space that hosts everything from dinner parties to secret music shows. A bright red industrial staircase leads me up to light-filled studio spaces, meeting rooms and design archive. Joined by Twig the whippet, we settle in a meeting space opposite the main workplace, seated on a cohesive blend of various Pearson Lloyd designs.