Popping-in?

Our studio is filled with light and music.
There are multiple meeting rooms, a well stocked kitchen, and an indoor garden (with fishpond). Talk to us about access needs, environmental factors and any accommodations we might make to enhance your visit. Pop-in for tea and stay to use a spare desk for as long as you need.

11 Greenwich Centre Business Park,
53 Norman Road, Greenwich
London SE10 9QF

Cog is a Certified B Corporation

Public transport

We’re next to Greenwich train and DLR station. We have a door right on the concourse but it’s different to our postal address.

From Greenwich rail platform

This video shows the route to take from the train that will arrive at Greenwich rail station from London Bridge. There's a gentle slope next to the staircase.

From Greenwich DLR station

This video shows the route to take from the DLR that will arrive at Greenwich DLR station from Bank. There's a lift at the platform level if that's useful.

By car

If you have to come by car, we have a couple of parking spaces. We have a charging point that you are welcome to use if you have an electric car. Call ahead and we'll make sure the spaces are free. Use our postcode (SE10 9QF) to guide you in.

Get in touch

We’d love to hear from you. Use whichever medium works best for you.

11 Greenwich Centre Business Park,
53 Norman Road, Greenwich
London SE10 9QF

Cog is a Certified B Corporation

New project enquiry

It's exciting to chat about potential new projects. We don't have a ‘sales’ team or a form to fill in. Call us or give us a little detail via email and we'll get straight back to you.

enquiry@cogdesign.com

Website support

If you're a client then you'll be best served by calling us or contacting us via ClickUp, otherwise you can use this dedicated email that reaches all of the digital team.

digital@cogdesign.com

Finance questions

This email hits the inboxes of the people who deal with our bookkeeping and finances.

accounts@cogdesign.com

Just want a chat?

Sometimes enquiries don't fall neatly under a heading, do they?

hello@cogdesign.com

Cultural Calendar

A round-up of recommendations and reviews, sent on the first Friday of each month, topped-off with a commissioned image from a talented new illustrator. Sign-up and tell your friends.

Sign me up Cultural Calendar

Cog News

An irregular update of activity from our studio. Showing off about great new projects, announcements, job opportunities, that sort of thing. Sign-up and tell your friends.

Sign me up Cog News

Absent at Shoreditch Town Hall

Absent at Shoreditch Town Hall

Constructed in the basements of Shoreditch Town Hall, Absent is an immersive theatre experience by dreamthinkspeak. More installation than performance; music, film and sets come together cleverly to create a disorienting labyrinth.

We spent our Wednesday night on a journey of exploration, through derelict corners and never ending, soulless modernist hotel rooms and into an opulent ballroom.

The story is based loosely on the life of the Duchess of Argyll, who was known firstly as a dazzling debutante, in the 1930s, and then as a sexually voracious socialite, renowned for her high-profile divorce in the 1960s. Her slide from grace was spectacular and in 1978, unable to keep her home, she moved into the Grosvenor House Hotel, where she lived until she was eventually evicted in 1990 for unpaid rent. We follow ghostly sightings of a Duchess-like figure around the hotel, seeing her as a young woman and as an older lady, falling from grace and disappearing from the hotel.

The other focus is on the new CEO of the hotel chain, who are modernising and commoditising the hotel in the present day, perhaps a comment on gentrification in London and particularly in Shoreditch where the show is based.

There's a sense of intrigue and play, from the spy holes you initially look through into rooms, to climbing through wardrobes and mirror-image rooms.

Both storylines seem a bit lost in the experience.  We look for clues in the modern and derelict rooms but these don’t create a coherent sense of plot. It’s more a sense of her character and a sense of dislocation that you come away with.

The most impressive parts were the detailed miniature sets. The repetition of the same room at various different sizes create a pleasing disorientation. There’s also a sense of intrigue and play, from the spy holes you initially look through into rooms, to climbing through wardrobes and mirror-image rooms. A destroyed ballroom and a beautiful abandoned bedroom give a haunting ending to the experience. These once magnificent, opulent old rooms have fallen into disrepair and ruin, in stark contrast to the   repetition of utilitarian, sleek, modern box-rooms.

All in all a fascinating experience that could have been brilliant if they’d found a way to define the storyline more.