One Portal Way isn’t just a new building.

It’s a new neighbourhood taking shape in North Acton, right in between Park Royal and White City, a place where scientists, engineers, creators, and residents will live and work side by side.

That’s why the exterior of the building has been painted by someone who understands this area from the inside: local artist and creative founder, David Samuel.

David has worked in Park Royal for over a decade. In that time, he’s watched the area evolve from an industrial zone into one of London’s most exciting centres for creativity and making.

His murals, bold, abstract and instantly recognisable, have become a visual thread weaving through the neighbourhood. They’re not just art; they’re markers, signals, and signposts. They help people find their way, understand where they are and feel part of something.

Bringing his work onto One Portal Way is a way of honouring the community that already exists here and welcoming the community that is about to arrive.

Why does that matter for the people who will live or work at One Portal Way?

Because places feel better—and function better—when you can read their story the moment you walk in. David’s mural signals that this is a neighbourhood rooted in real craft, real creativity, and real people. It shows that One Portal Way isn’t being dropped into a blank space; it’s being built in the middle of a living and breathing ecosystem.

Park Royal is full of artists, sculptors, film‑makers, designers, and fabricators. White City, just a short walk away, is full of scientists, engineers, and researchers. David stands at the meeting point of those worlds. He’s already collaborating with Imperial College engineers, turning his hand‑made sculptures into 3D‑printed hybrids using laboratory technologies. Their first project together earned the student, Alex Ambrose, a First. More importantly, it sparked a movement: students are now asking how artists can help them think differently, and artists are discovering how science can expand their work.

This is the type of crossover that One Portal Way can support and amplify.

By adopting a local artist into the building’s identity—literally into its skin—you invite the wider community in.

You make it easier for residents to discover what’s around them. You create natural paths between the makers of Park Royal and the innovators of One Portal Way, helping to shape a place where people don’t just pass through, but connect.

David explains it simply:“Our science is world‑class. Our art is world‑class. When you bring them together, something new happens.”

His mural is more than decoration. It’s a message that says: this is a place where communities converge and ideas mix.

The thing we David is that what started as a commission became something much closer to a collaboration.

Over the course of the project, he didn't just paint a building, he became part of the team working alongside us at Sciopolis and with McFeggan Brown, and winning over everyone he met with his passion for the area and his infectious enthusiasm.

He brought his people with him, too. Members of his team have since entered our ecosystem and are becoming trusted suppliers in their own right.

The photo below, of Charlie and David mid-hug as the project wrapped, says it better than we can. He may have started as a supplier, but ended up a friend.

Watch David's interview below

More about David: RareKind | Art & Design Studio for Murals, Signage and Direction