Space HouseImages1 / Information
Location Camden, London
Status On site
Description
Squire & Partners are sensitively refurbishing and extending the iconic Grade II-listed Space House in Covent Garden for Seaforth Land. The ambitious retrofit will create 255,000sq ft of high-quality workspace, contemporary and flexible retail space at ground floor and an improved public realm.
Space House was designed by Richard Seifert and Partners and is known for its innovative architecture, with a striking grid-like precast concrete façade. Built in 1968, the building was refurbished in 1996 and again in 2003. Squire & Partners’ designs will remove the layers of subsequent interventions to retain, expose and celebrate the original architecture, whilst creating new, complementary additions to accommodate modern working environments.
Proposals seek to reimagine the existing buildings whilst adding two floors of office accommodation to the tower addressing Kemble Street, and a single-storey extension to the block on Kingsway. The extension of the 17-storey tower will tidy up the existing rooftop plant, reinstating the original design intent for a clean set-back top floor whilst creating a 3,600sq ft roof terrace. The new eighth floor of the block will provide meeting rooms and a Club House comprised of a bar and 5,000sq ft terrace accessible to all tenants.
Originally built in an era advanced by the popularity of the automobile, proposals will reinvent the car-centric elements of the building for the future. A ramp to the basement will be retained to provide dedicated cycle access to end of journey facilities, with the existing car park providing expansive cycle storage for over 500 bikes. Elsewhere, a void that punctures the two-storey basement will provide a 16,500sq ft flexible double-height event space.
Occupants will be welcomed by a spacious, double-height lobby and reception at the base of the tower. The 10,000sq ft circular, column-free floorplates will be flooded with natural light, with the top ten floors providing unobstructed 360-degree views of the city. In the Kingsway block, an intimate lobby grants access to eight floors, each comprising 8,000sq ft of workspace. The sky bridge creates contiguous workspace on the first and second floors, and a garden terrace on the third.
The egalitarian workspaces feature long sightlines, offering high levels of visual connectivity to support collaborative working. Designed in a loft style, offices feature polished concrete floors, whilst new terrazzo flooring will be installed throughout the common areas, with original mosaic tiling in the stair cores retained.
Space House will be the first listed building in London to achieve BREEAM ‘Outstanding’. A new, high-performing services installation will utilise air source heat pumps, and heating and cooling will be provided by bespoke chilled beams – designed to fit seamlessly within the existing radial ceiling coffers.
The existing poor-quality public realm, previously used as a car park, will be enhanced to provide links between the ground floor retail uses in the two buildings. An existing onsite petrol station canopy at the base of the tower will be enclosed and become The Filling Station restaurant, activating the street level and opening it up to public use.
Team
Architect & Principal Designer Squire & Partners
Client Seaforth Land
BREEAM, Sustainability & MEP Atelier Ten
Structural Engineer Pell Frischmann
Landscape Designer Gustafson Porter + Bowman
Heritage Consultants Donald Insall Associates
Development & Project Manager Avison Young
Planning Consultant Gerald Eve
Enabling & Demolition Works Erith
Awards
2022
WAF Awards finalist
WAN Award Bronze winner
NLA Award shortlist
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