With an iconic red brick structure Union House located in Southwark at the intersection of Great Suffolk Street and Union Street, has recently undergone significant renovations. Formerly a warehouse the building has been converted into offices, with its upper two levels demolished and replaced with new fourth, fifth and mezzanine floors. These new levels feature a fully glazed south-facing cranked façade, which provides stunning views to those on the upper floors. The reception, lower ground floor and third floor offices have also been refurbished to maintain a cohesive and modern look.
Due to the significant increase in floor space from these renovations, some challenges had to be overcome such as the building’s single lift and limited electrical supply. To ensure that occupants could reach the upper floors an additional lift was installed. For comfort cooling and space heating a VRF heat pump system was introduced.
Despite the challenges of the renovation, Union House now offers over 28,000ft² of multi-tenanted office space, complete with polished concrete or timber flooring. These upgrades provide the opportunity for quirky and unique office tenancies in the chic South Bank district of London.
The exposed services strategy implemented at Fortess Grove compliments the industrial nature of the building. Cycling facilities are provided along with showers and lockers at ground floor level accessed directly from the rear of the building along Railey Mews. The development achieved a WiredScore certification of ‘Gold’ and a B rated Energy Performance Certification.
The carbon neutral status was achieved by exemplary as-built air tightness facade solar and thermal performance significantly in excess of the Building Regulations requirements, highly energy efficient M&E systems, LED lighting and photovoltaic panel arrays on the roof of the warehouse.
Sustainability initiatives include LED lighting with occupancy detection and daylight dimming controls, solar thermal hot water heating, air source heat pumps and photovoltaic panels, resulting in an EPC rating of A and a Very Good rating under BREEAM New Construction (Industrial) 2014.
The Kodak building in Holborn has been designed to achieve high sustainability benchmarks with WELL ‘Gold’ and BREEAM ‘Excellent’.
The speculative office space is fitted out to a Category A standard and will be British Council of Offices (BCO) Guide to Specification 2019 compliant. The refurbishment has adjusted the temperature control zones to pull them better in line with the BCO recommendations than currently provided.