Historic Camden warehouse transformed into modern, light office space
Mon 12 Nov 2018
We’re delighted to reveal our latest refurbishment project: a £280,000 office development in the narrow lanes of Camden’s Jeffrey’s Street Conservation Area. We have transformed a mid-19th century warehouse into a modern, uncluttered office space for our client BTU Group, building service engineers.
The historic two storey building was built around 1850, originally with small windows and little natural light. Working through design, planning, and construction we navigated the restrictions related to its location in a Conservation Area, as well as the limitations of very tight access to the site.
We set out to make the interior feel brighter and more open. Our design rationalises internal spaces and opens up the building to daylight by connecting three floors with a folded steel staircase.
Over a year-long planning process, we obtained permission for a new roof extension. The new storey features a large central skylight, opening up the building so light pours down into the spaces below. The new storey is used as a private office with a long high-level window offering views of the treetops of the gardens behind.
Our folded steel staircase divides the building in two and reduces wasteful corridor space. It connects all three levels, defining more open and public spaces at the front and private spaces at the back that can be separated.
We used rough and natural materials such as mild steel and oak in combination with grey painted plasterboard and glass to reflect the building's original use.
When work started, removing grid ceilings and existing layers of plasterboard, revealed a unique patchwork of brickwork showing marks of the building’s previous uses, and our design reinstates original features of the building and restores its character.
Our sliding timber shutters provide control of light and privacy to the ground floor of the office and when closed, echo the original stable frontage. The timber lining continues inside, concealing a small kitchen and WC, that blend into the wall when the doors are closed.
Jeffrey’s Place is an example of the kind of projects we specialise in: creating beautiful spaces in sites that have limitations in terms of planning restrictions or constrained access. Contact us if you have a project you would like to discuss.
Click on the link to see the project gallery:
http://www.tasou.co.uk/projects/commercial-mixed-use/jeffrey-s-place.htm