The Grain Store

Morning on the water, evening on the street.

Grain wanted through-draught, so the store got windows on both long walls — east over the basin, west to the lane — and by accident of ventilation it became the best-lit deep floor in the harbour. The sun arrives across the water at breakfast, hands the room to the sky at midday, and returns down the lane before closing.

The floors are deep and the oak columns are non-negotiable: they hold the building up and always will. Workshops, printers, studios that need benches by a window and storage in the dark middle — this is their building. The gable loft, up in the roof, takes light from both sides at once.