Laura Cescon Avedissian

Interior Design (MA)

The Verge Communal Kitchen: A shared cooking space as an extension of the joy found in hospitality environments we all value. It invites conversation and informal relationships with the building—from leaning on counters to sitting on the floor—framed by reclaimed bricks from Tower Hamlets and the warmth of soft light.

Building reuse: By transforming the first four floors into a people’s house, the project reanimates the office levels above—retaining the building’s original vertical circulation to ensure continuity and access. The name The Verge draws from “convergence,” meaning “to bend or turn together”—a reference to meetings that happen in between curves, edges, and flows, where different lives and materials intersect.

3D Model: Populated with real figures from photographs taken this year in the medieval city of Siena, the 3D model tests spatial belonging as a measure of public life and architectural success. Far from feeling out of place, the figures settle naturally into the environment—among imperfect, chunked reclaimed bricks that showcase traces of their past use, assembled with care into arches that retain visible histories and invite occupation.

Road covering at night: Designed to be part of Canary Wharf’s nightlife, The Verge extends publicness into the evening with soft lighting, secondary seating, and a slowed pedestrian flow—where the sloped limestone plateau serves as an area of performance and encounter.

About

The Verge People’s House:

The Verge is a reuse proposal for 15 Westferry Circus, a disused nine-storey office building in Canary Wharf. The project reclaims publicness—the quality of being truly public—by reactivating the pedestrian scale. It transforms the first four floors into social spaces, including a kitchen, café, library, chess and play areas, a performance space, and a sloped outdoor extension that partially covers the road. Reclaimed brick arches act as invitations to enter, while the road covering introduces secondary seating and moments of slowdown. Drawing from the layered urbanism of the medieval city of Siena, the project brings intimacy, curved paths, and inhabitable openness to the master planned grid—shaped through research with local communities in Tower Hamlets.

About myself:

I create holistic environments by translating subtle human behaviours and site character into intentional spatial design—grounded in deep research, strategic thinking, and a good dose of joy. With a background in design management and research, I bring a systemic approach to spatial practice that bridges user insight, material exploration, and design execution—connecting the experiential with the strategic to shape meaningful, context-aware interiors.

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