10 New Burlington Street | Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

The client’s ambition is to provide world-class, state-of-the art retail and office accommodation on these two prestigious central London sites. The architectural response sensitively mixes preservation of the characters of Regent Street and New Burlington Street with the insertion of high quality contemporary buildings. The curved, ‘tulip’ profiles of these new structures release space at ground level and taper gently toward the sky, forming a distinctive new contribution to the neighbourhood’s built heritage; retained façades appear and reappear amongst them.

The first of a pair of buildings to be redeveloped for the Crown Estate, the site known as W4 sits across New Burlington Street from its non-identical twin, W5, facing squarely onto the west side of the world famous shopping street, Regent Street.

The redevelopment creates new floor plates within the curtilage of this significant and historical site with retained listed façades and early C17th vaults at basement. Large retail units are provided on three levels at basement, ground and part first floors. The office floors between first and sixth floors are entered through a new elevation at No. 12 New Burlington Street. The total net internal area is approximately 130,000 sq ft of which 33,000 sq ft is retail and 97,000 sq ft is office.

The existing Henry Tanner façade fronting onto Regent Street has been retained as well as the majority of those onto New Burlington Street where a new stone entrance façade has been carefully inserted. Two entirely new façades are created onto New Burlington Mews and New Burlington Mews Yard. These new elevations consist of a high performance unitised cladding system, featuring opening windows and a white frit pattern to control solar gain. The façade facing New Burlington Mews incorporates a double skin which gently curves inwards at the top and bottom, leaning away from the adjacent buildings and maximising the Mews width.

The main core is placed in the centre of the block and backs on to a five storey atrium overlooked by the office floors. The solid wall of the core is clad in scalloped blue reflective faïence tiles, providing a soft aesthetic rarely associated with commercial developments. The other sides of the atrium are clad in anodised aluminium, glass and timber, and maintain the proportions of the new façade in No 12 New Burlington Street. The atrium is conceived as an internal room, having its own character.

The glazed roof to the atrium maximises the amount of light filtering through to the office floors and features glass structural beams and panels of glass measuring up to 7.5 x 2.5 metres. As well as providing a light source to the deeper parts of the floor plates, the atrium serves as the main access to the office space via bridges that span across its depth. Breakout spaces at 2nd and 3rd Floors ensure that the atrium is integrated into the everyday use of the building by generating activity in the space.

The 6th floor differentiates itself from the other floors featuring an intricate exposed steel structure that opens up the perimeter of the building allowing greater views out and connecting the office space to a generous terrace facing Regent Street. As well as terraces to the 5th and 6th Floors, an additional amenity space for the occupants is provided to the rear of the building at ground level. The Mews and Mews Yard, which are currently nothing more than service alleyways, are transformed by the introduction of integrated seating and a trellis structure featuring climber planting. This “green wall” runs along the full length of the Mews and Mews Yard, providing a green backdrop to the reception waiting area, which can be glimpsed from the entrance to the building