The Southbank Centre | Royal Festival Hall

Update for the top floor Southbank Centre members’ room and bar, a unique cultural club with one of the best riverside views in London.

Royal Festival Hall

Southbank Centre
London SE1

Feasibility | Planning | Joinery | Furniture specification & procurement

Hard to imagine now but this room at the top of The Royal Festival Hall with glorious river views was un-loved and under-used; a few thoughtful & easily realised additions have changed the feel, allowed daytime working to co-exist with social visitors and improved membership numbers.

More seats, larger sociable groups and a mix of style and material including tomato red sofas give the room a new informality; high quality, contemporary pieces chosen to complement the building and the existing furniture, and to work in adaptable configurations for daytime use, evening events and private parties.

And with more people using the space the two previously rarely open bars book-ending the room are now busy all day: deep counters make more space for service and display, new window shelves and stools reclaim city views, and shared reading tables encourage conversation and link the bars with the main space.

A unique and hugely popular cultural club and the first in a series of commissions at London’s People’s Palace including a visitor behaviour study examining the fascinating relationship between space, food, art, commerce and operation.

Southbank Centre Furniture study
Royal Festival Hall Interval bars

Photography Alexander Newton