Two London-based practices are quietly testing a new direction for self-storage, aiming to prove that the sector can sit more happily within city life than the stark, edge-of-town blocks it has long defined. The Architects’ Journal reports that Architecture 00 and Gibson Thornley have pitched two urban-storage schemes to Compound, the developer, with visions for Peckham in south London and New Barnet in north London. Rather than separate huts sprawled along unnamed industrial parks, these proposals bring storage onto the high street and pair it with co-working, community space and light industrial uses. Architecture 00’s five-storey Peckham scheme is designed to sit on a cleared plot along a busy corridor, offering an active frontage, planted decks and a ground-floor legibility that aims to invite passers-by in. Pepper emphasises a shift toward a “domestic rather than industrial feel,” a move intended to make the building read as part of the neighbourhood rather than a fortress on the outskirts. In New Barnet, Thornley’s low-rise proposal for Gibson Thornley likewise seeks to repair the street frontage by matching height and rhythm to surrounding homes, and by adopting a metallic and precast concrete palette inspired by High-Tech architecture. Both schemes are pitched as flexible, energy-efficient hybrids capable of accommodating evolving uses and a variety of users, from local residents to start-ups seeking a public-facing address.

The broader design conversation around these schemes is less about size and capacity and more about how storage can be beautiful, durable and integrated into urban life. Industry commentary and project reviews describe a shift away from “soulless” or hostile facilities toward façades, massing and landscaping that help such buildings sit comfortably within streets and communities. The New Shape of Self-Storage argues that municipalities increasingly demand sophisticated façades, active frontages and a streetscape that blends with its surroundings, with multi-storey urban facilities and varied materials helping to camouflage storage as a legitimate urban element. Across these discussions, the prospect of combining storage with retail, workspace or community uses features prominently, creating facilities that function as welcoming, legible parts of the city and are equipped with energy-efficient systems and advanced access technology. With co-located spaces on the high street, Pepper notes, small and micro businesses that grew during the Covid era now seek public-facing presence, while the rise of compact urban living makes on-demand storage an everyday utility rather than a last resort.

Design writers emphasise both the architectural opportunity and the practical hurdles of pursuing such mixed-use, street-facing storage. The practical logic is clear: these schemes are intended to be flexible—able to adapt to changing work and living patterns—and to contribute to local economies by activating ground floors and providing accessible, user-friendly interfaces for customers. Bruce Jordan’s A New Dawn for Self-Storage Design argues that the industry has moved beyond utilitarian back rooms toward architecture-led projects that demand curb appeal, ground-floor activation and clear visualisations to engage planning authorities and nearby communities. In parallel, the sector’s move toward lifestyle storage—with transparent façades, street-facing entrances and pedestrian-friendly public realm—is paralleled by calls for smarter planning and, in some cases, the repurposing of existing urban buildings to overcome zoning and cost barriers. The mixed-use approach is being framed as the next frontier, with robotics and automation at the ready to support dense city sites and dynamic customer needs.

A broader market arc supports these architectural ambitions. GlobeSt highlights a growing appetite among investors for adaptive reuse of existing buildings as a route into urban self-storage, noting that roughly 191 million square feet of storage space has been created via repurposing since 2014–2023, led by cities such as Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. The upside, industry watchers say, includes lower upfront costs, faster market entry and the ability to fit climate-controlled units and on-site services into sites with established transport links. Taken together with the architectural interest in canopies, trellises and other street-ready devices, the story is less about building bigger sheds and more about designing storage as a visible, well-designed element of the urban fabric—one that can host a workforce, a community hub and a flexible home for possessions, all within walking distance of daily life.

Referencing this broader shift, ArchDaily’s Design Depot illustrates how storage projects can range from subtle interior systems to bold urban interventions, underscoring that storage can be a design feature in its own right. In the context of the UK proposals, the lesson is clear: well-designed storage that looks outward to the street and inward to user needs has the potential to reframe what a lock-up can be, from a temporary necessity to a long-term civic asset.

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Source: Noah Wire Services