Concealed behind the industrial doors of a repurposed factory building in the heart of China’s Pearl Delta, visitors to the SanKok Arts Office by Timothy Oulton Studio will discover a pentagonal entrance door.
Solve the puzzle and an electric drawbridge opens into the cavernous main space to reveal a suspended lantern-like, timber and polycarbonate structure forming the owners private office. A motorized ocular door, inspired by a camera shutter mechanism, connects the office with a cylindrical meeting room and the other staff areas via a central metal and timber walkway and staircase.
A 15 meter table made from accumulated workshop samples accommodates dining for up to fifty customers under the lantern office with additional entertaining areas focused around a salvaged log beam bar configured with Japanese 3way joints and a backdrop of undulating reclaimed local bricks.
The design was devised to showcase the companies specialist timber capabilities and was almost entirely constructed in-house.