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 building at 20 St James’ Street has been refurbished to offer 53,295ft² of high quality office accommodation, for which Watkins Payne supplied building services engineering, vertical transportation engineering, BREEAM duties and energy consultancy to achieve an BREEAM ‘Very Good’ and EPC B rating.
The mixed use development comprises two office buildings totalling 530,000ft² of high quality office accommodation together with a 162 unit residential scheme consisting of a 26 storey private apartment tower and affordable housing building. The scheme also includes retail units and a community arts facility. 10 Brock Street is the larger of the office buildings and Watkins Payne supplied building services engineering, vertical transportation engineering, BREEAM duties and energy consultancy to achieve BREEAM ‘Excellent’ and an EPC B rating.
10 Fetter Lane needed some freshening up for marketing, so the first floor offices were to be modernised as a show stopper with a contemporary exposed services design and improved floor to ceiling height.
The project involved the refurbishment and extension of the existing building to deliver over 260,000sq ft of office space, achieving BREEAM ‘Outstanding’.
The Practice was responsible for designing and monitoring the refurbishment of the kitchen facilities.