Urban cloister: Through thoughtful spatial organization, these remodelled offices for a television production company are intended to nurture a spirit of creativity.

Television production companies occupy that curious middle ground between research, creativity and business. Writers, producers and researchers develop ideas that are brought into being by technical and production staff. Talkback make a wide range of familiar British television programmes and the firm's new offices in central London reflect a conscious spirit of corporate informality intended to encourage creative thinking and interaction. Architects Buschow Henley describe it as a building for a society'.

The site consists of two adjoining Edwardian buildings in Newman Street, just north of the bustle of Oxford Street. Each is 9m wide and 34m deep and originally, each had a 10m deep block adjoining the main street, with a similar five-storey structure facing the mews to the rear. The disparate parts were connected by a two-storey block, yet circulation was complex and inefficient, as each building had an independent staircase. Buschow Henley's elegantly rational solution simplifies spatial and social organization by linking the two main buildings and reinventing the central space as a multi-storey cloister for perambulating, meeting and thinking. Existing link blocks were demolished and replaced by a new two-storey structure. The remodelled buildings contain work spaces for around 250 staff, together with a television studio, two editing suites and meeting rooms. Rediscovered and revitalized, the central space is the fulcrum of the scheme, its character changing with the various levels. On the ground floor it is an open courtyard; at first floor a garden. Terraces and decks on the upper floors form a network of circulation routes which are also places to meet, relax and work outside. Each deck or cloister is wide enough for people to circulate while others work or chat. Decks are sheltered by a steel-framed, zinc-clad cowl on the west side that extends above roof level. On the east side, a roof extension cantilevers over the decks below. The crisp, cuboid geometry of the new parts forms a stage set for the daily dramas and intimacies of workplace life.

Within this stage set are two gardens, green refuges in the heart of the city. One takes its cue from the northern European medieval tradition of the herb garden, the other is a plain lawn laid (like the herb garden) on the roof of one of the new connecting blocks. A minimal palette of iroko, Douglas fir, brick and zinc, treated and finished in a variety of ways to accentuate subtle differences between materials, reinforces the scheme's workmanlike spirit. Rejecting corporate convention, the sequence of entry is discreet. A narrow alleyway on the south side brings visitors into the heart of the building with views out into the womb-like court and its sensuous, timber-lined walls. The ground floor also contains a common room, servery, kitchen, meeting rooms and offices. Blind box spaces, such as the television studio, editing suites, green room and plant, are logically confined to the basement. A rehearsal room originally planned for the top floor is now used as a production office. Intermediate floors house self-contained office units designed to accommodate individual production teams.

Underpinning the project's strong social and communal dimension is a measure of environmentally aware design. Decks and cowls provide solar shading and doors are designed with integral high level hopper vents for secure night-time cooling. Water collected from the roof is stored in the basement and used to irrigate the gardens in dry spells. Far removed from the familiar bland prairies of speculative offices, Buschow Henley's scheme is an invigorating and humane response to the challenge of making places for work. C. S.