Client: VMM Limited
Project: Beak Street
Our client owns and occupies a commercial building in Soho, occupied by his own companies and by associated creative services companies.
Our client decided he wanted to improve his asset and asked us to investigate how the space could be optimized. Our brief had several aspects: develop options for retail/restaurant space on the basement and ground floors, gain permission to also extend the individual upper floor plates for business use, and refurbish the whole building to a modern office standard.
When finished the extended building will feature two stylish upper floors offices for our client and commercial teams, plus two floors for letting to tenants, finished to a Cat A+ standard.
The services for whole building will be modernised with new air conditioning, and a new cabled infrastructure for data services and a new elevators. Beautiful wooden and stone floor will be laid throughout, and modern lighting employed, and the overall aesthetic will be contemporary and fresh.
To meet the brief, we created a design solution which maintained the existing frontage of the building but extended it horizontally at the rear. The scheme also involved creating a new service route to the roof for future restaurant occupants. Using a series of structural interventions, we made each of the floors deeper by creating a series of curved tiered bays which give space without compromising the daylight of the neighbouring properties. The architectural theme is a nod to the theatre balconies of Soho. The rear extension was finally achieved through a successful planning appeal.
