Goldsmiths' Assay Office

Project Details

Location: London

Project: Major refurbishment including new shop area, offices, workshops and cafe The Assay Office

Contract Value: £1.2m

Project Description

Neu Architects were commissioned to remodel the Assay Office, London, part of one of Britain’s oldest and most prestigious organisations, The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. The Assay Office, London, tests and hallmarks precious metals for the country’s leading jewellers, and has done so for over 700 years from the same location: Goldsmiths’ Hall, a scheduled monument in the heart of the City of London. 

The scheme is a well-crafted, delicate and honest design that gives customers and staff alike something to be inspired by. The complex technical and historical brief has been cleverly worked to strike an agile balance between old and new. Techniques such as printing, stamping, laser cutting, bending and shaping are used in the design to echo the hallmarking craft. 

Neu Architects proposed an increased retail space at the public entrance to the building, with a new ‘Beach Glass’ Corian curved wall, which separated customers and staff areas. From the entrance customers can see illuminated images on the Corian wall of both a life-sized leopard prowling across the floor and the stylised leopard-head logo of The Assay Office itself. Complex CNC routing and illumination from the back were necessary to create the three-dimensional, luminous appearance of the Leopard. The historic entrance walls are lined in bespoke Goldsmiths’ wallpaper, designed by Neu Architects, using six historical varieties of the leopard head stamp. Opposite the public counter is a black glass information panel, bearing the leopard’s head crest and name of the Assay Office. Two inset screens provide up to date information as well as ticket scanning facility. 

The staff café situated on the workflow route presents itself from behind a glass screen just like a café shop front on a busy street.