‘The setback would have been subservient,’ comments practice founder Ian Chalk. Instead of adding the setback roof extension already approved by planning, the architect added an extra floor in line with the building frontage.
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The view upwards from the bottom of this stair also reveals the different layers of the warehouse, from the polished concrete floor of the basement to the beam-and-block floors above, and finally to the CLT of the roof level.Īt the upper level the original structure’s cast-iron columns and beams have been replaced with steel in order to hold up the new CLT roof extension. Its perforations were carefully modelled to allow light to penetrate the building. Positioned at the far end of the office, it gives a focus to the open-plan space. These have been left open – some with their original large timber doors – connecting the open-plan office spaces to the meeting rooms.Ī new perforated steel stair cuts through all the floor plates. This new addition marries with the old warehouse through the openings originally used to load furniture, materials and equipment into the large warehouse floors. The building’s old staircore and entrance at the opposite end of the building were deemed too awkward to keep, and have been replaced with toilets on each floor. It has been built over the warehouse’s former yard, creating a covered entrance way, space for a lift core and escape stair, and also houses meeting rooms on the upper floors. Viewed from Pitfield Street, the building’s four-storey entrance addition provides a refreshed vista for the street. The brief was to keep as much of the warehouse’s original features as possible. Everything was shot blasted and cleaned up, revealing the texture and detail of the original materials.
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The architect tackled this with a series of small interventions: a new entrance, reworking the circulation, and a roof extension. We wanted a building that would reflect all of that for us.’ ‘We are less about the operational energy. ‘Our ethos as a practice is to use low embodied carbon materials, and to keep what you can’, says HTS founder Tom Steel. HTS brought in Ian Chalk Architects and tasked it with creating a building that would display the engineering firm’s ethos. It also had planning approval for a stepped-back rooftop extension. When HTS bought the building back in 2019, it had already been converted into an office with many of its key architectural features hidden. But 16 Chart Street is neither rough nor unpolished.
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We’ve long seen architects and engineers take over existing buildings – it’s cheaper and there’s something about the rough, almost unpolished, look that appeals to the creative industries.
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Nestled on a mostly residential street in London’s Hoxton district, this brick building is now the home of engineering practice Heyne Tillett Steel (HTS). Just a few minutes’ walk away from Old Street, where new glassy towers seem to be emerging from the ground every few months, sits a 1930s former furniture warehouse.