A north London hospital building will open as a co-working space in January 2016 after a decade of disuse.

Camden Collective, a workspace and training provider for creatives, has tasked architects Co-DB and RARA with reviving the 1873 National Temperance Hospital on Hampstead Road, near Warren Street tube station.

‘It’s a great old building and also slightly spooky,’ said Simon Pitkeathley, CEO of Camden Town Unlimited, which runs the Camden Collective project. ‘We’re trying to use the features that are there and the fundamental feel of the building will be unchanged.’

One of the hospital’s wards will form the main crux of hot desks while its old operating theatre is being repurposed as a boardroom.

‘Our general design philosophy was to strip the space back to its original form,’ said James Sale, director at Co-DB. ‘We took out partitions and other additions over the years so you can see right through the building – the plan was to connect everything together.’

Camden Collective has been able to take over the Victorian building following discussions with bosses at High Speed 2 Limited, the team behind a proposed national rail network.

The hospital is slated to make way for HS2 eventually but Pitkeathley expects the co-working space to run for at least 18 months.