Phipp St | Groupwork

The four storey building at 18 Phipp St, Shoreditch, EC2A was a later addition to the warehouse block bounded by Christina St to the South and Luke St to the North. The building has over the years changed its use from a purpose built warehouse to its current mixed-use function: Bar/Restaurant at ground, offices at 1st and 2nd and residential flats to the 3rd floors.

ATA’s freeholder client asked us to refurbish the Common Parts, 1st and 2nd floor offices and exterior fabric. Like Golden Lane, to meet changing requirements over its history the existing spaces expressed constituent structural materials of brick, cast iron and timber which had been covered up: Plaster boarded walls, cellular office partitions, suspended ceilings, retrofitted cooling units, trunking and raised softwood floorboards contributed to the ad hoc series of fitouts over the years. Previous regulations prescribed fire and smoke partitions and these with previous additional elements diminished the building’s inherent ‘open’ character and spatial qualities. ATA’s task was to reconfigure and provide cohesion to these spaces with an approach that offered a consistent pallette of materials and detailing throughout the freeholder’s demise.

Continuing from ATA’s experiences at Golden Lane, small opening up investigations revealed brickwork, cast iron columns and timber joists. Again a bold strategy was agreed to remove all suspended ceilings, raised floors and any existing wall linings. Fortunately all of the original walls, columns, beams, joists, noggins and floor boards remained intact having been preserved behind the boxing out.

Expressing the structure’s original materiality required these elements to remain un-adorned with the standard approaches that meet building regulations. ATA worked together with an approved Building Control Approved Inspector and Structural Engineer to implement new building technologies and engineered solutions to achieve compliance with building regulations and British Standards to reduce visually intrusive systems. This, in addition to a substantial construction cost savings compared to conventional building products informed the design and persuaded the freeholder to pursue this course.

Access from the street is via a self-finished hardwood door and original stripped back render surround. The first floor is served by a cantelevering oak lined staircase with a sawtooth profile expressing its function internally and through the external windows. The common stair is split into two separate forms to highlight their penetration of full width floors plates. The saw tooth profile mirroring the stair within then offers the opportunity of an internal stair between the first and second floors without losing floor area. Working closely with a specialist steel fabricator full height fire rates steel portal framed doors express the threshold between the private and common parts and seperate the inserted staircases.

Externally the principle scope involved lightly refurbishing timber windows casements, removing paint from stonework and cast iron and cleaning brickwork and resetting the chimney pots. In the future we hope to be commissioned to design desks, work benches, plan chests, and storage units for the interiors.