Perfume Factory

Developing residential homes within new territories requires creating a sense of place and belonging, as well as integrating the development into the local neighbourhood. The Perfume Factory was Elizabeth Arden’s manufacturing home and forms a southern gateway to the Old Oak and Park Royal Opportunity Area.

The need to create a social focus where no real public realm existed in the immediate neighbourhood became a driving force to create a real sense of place to support the residential core and integrate the PRS development into the local neighbourhood. Working from the inside out became crucial along with creating transparent thresholds.

The new square offers an extended threshold and supports multiple activities including ever changing pop-ups drawing not only residents but the community into the space generating a vibrant and vital new public space with double height glazed leisure activities forming the outer edge.

Projecting canopies provide human scale by capping the vertical emphasis of the towers and the character developed from the historical reference to Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door – a large portal signals ‘I’m home’ for the Essential Living residents as well as acting as a landmark for the southern gateway.