Elsley House.

Elsley House is an elegant art-deco building within the upmarket Fitzrovia area of central London. The property was originally delivered in the 1930s for the garment industry, and has now been refurbished into a contemporary office destination by Burwell Deakins Architects, for Great Portland Estates.

Location

London, United Kingdom

Client

Great Portland Estates

Architect

Burwell Deakins Architects

Project Value

confidential

Floor Area

6,200m²

Status

Completed 2020

Expertise

Structures

The renewed scheme retains the art-deco character, while delivering 6,200m2 of bright, contemporary office space throughout the lower-ground and ground levels and across five upper storeys. The property is notable for its attractive, glazed pavilion entrance, which is accessed via a quiet, off-street courtyard setting.

Two reception areas are remodelled and updated, using materials that are carefully curated to follow the original art-deco design, while the rear-courtyard pavilion-lobby’s partition walls are concurrently removed to introduce a relaxed seating zone. An existing industrial lift is accessed from this courtyard, and now opens onto a large new bike store, complete with changing and shower facilities, that replaces a redundant oil tank within the lower-ground level.

Some existing vaults beneath the surrounding public pavements are additionally reclaimed to become further usable space, and now accommodate new WCs as part of the lower-ground programme. The building’s roof space is meanwhile repurposed into further, high-quality amenity, with the fifth-floor office gaining private access to a new, landscaped roof terrace, while the sixth-floor roof above becomes a second, more generous communal terrace and social space for all occupiers.

AKT II’s retrofit expertise was crucial in transforming this formerly underperforming asset into a coveted new office offering. A quirky original roof design in particular, together with some areas of under-performing masonry encapsulation of the steel frame, together required a detailed structural investigation in order to achieve the new rooftop functionality.

The new programme sits a short walk from the Oxford Circus underground station, and is now popular with media and technology occupiers.