The well established British brand of London Dry Gin, Beefeater, has recently opened its new visitor centre and exhibition space in London.

Following a competition held in 2008, Lee Boyd Architects and Four-by-Two design consultants made the winning bid to construct an extension that has tied two of the Beefeater sites’ original buildings together; creating a new point of entry and allowing visitors to move freely inside the distillery without interrupting its daily routine.

Designed to immerse the visitor in the story of gin and the history of London, the centre now features a retail space as well as several interactive exhibition galleries where individuals can learn about gins dark beginnings and the history of the Beefeater brand. This is followed by the Still Room - where the visitor discovers the production process - and has a small sample of the end result at a sleek new gin bar.

The outside of the new extension is clad in undulating copper coloured cladding, giving a nod to not only Beefeater’s traditional copper distilling process, but also the surrounding industrial heritage of the site, which is adjacent to a gas works.