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The Financial Times. 2 April 2000

Nowhere is individual expression more celebrated - and prefabrication less likely - than at Bankside Lofts, the epicentre of South Bank chic in London. Behind Piers Gough's striking saffron and gun-metal grey façade, owners are busy creating the kinds of interiors that fill design magazines. If prefabrication can work here, it can work anywhere.

In a few months, a truck will pull up outside the building, not carrying the usual load of glass walls or stainless steel kitchen tops. Instead, it will be carrying an entire studio for Carol Thatcher, daughter of former prime minister Baroness Thatcher.

She has already chosen the Bill Amberg leather carpet, the blinds, the television, the stereo system and the bathroom fittings. They and all the other components are being shipped to Sweden to be assembled at the same plant that produces outlets for McDonald's.

Carol Thatcher read about the First Penthouse construction system and rang the company to ask about building a studio on her Bankside terrace. She thought the project might be too small for the company or too expensive for her.
In fact, First Penthouse's estimate was half the cost of one of the others.

But cost was less of a factor than hassle. Like most Bankside owners, Carol Thatcher had spent months orchestrating the fit-out of her home. "Fitting out a loft can be more frustrating than one imagines," she says. "You find yourself the clerk of works organising a cast of thousands. I didn't want to inflict that again on myself or my neighbours."

Instead she sat down at the computer with the First Penthouse designer and drew up her plans. The exterior has been designed to match the original building and has Piers Gough's approval. The interior is entirely her own choice, as it would have been if built conventionally.

If all goes to plan, it will take one day to lift the studio off the truck and locate it on her
terrace. By the evening It should be ready for use. "It Is the perfect antidote to fitting out a shell," she says. "I'm sure they've happened on a real niche in the London market."

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