The design and duild contract, combining new build and retrofit, will deliver 93,517 sq ft of premium grade commercial space over seven storeys. It provides three additional office floors, an expanded office reception area, cycle storage and shower facilities, a courtyard on the second and third floors, terraces on most other office floors, a new core and plant rooms on level eight.
The West One building dates from the late 1970s, when the first phase of the Jubilee Line was built. It currently has three levels of retail from basement to first floor and four levels of offices from second to fifth floors. The new configuration by architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris has two levels of retail on basement and ground floors and offices on floors one to seven.
The redevelopment delivers an increase in office space of around 88%, and will target NABERS 5*, BREEAM Excellent, EPC A and WELL Enabled.
The new design minimises the embodied carbon of the refurbished building by retaining around 60% of the existing concrete structure and uses a lightweight steel structure from the second floor upwards to add more floors and maximise the net internal area.
A congested network of tunnels beneath the site means that the weight of any new structure is restricted and additional foundations are limited to those supporting a new concrete core for access to the office floors.
Darren Gill, managing director for London & South at McLaren Construction, comments: “All the technical challenges of this project – reusing an existing structure, working around commercial tenants and above a busy underground station – are increasingly familiar as Oxford Street reinvents itself and developers strive to provide quality modern space without wholesale demolition.”
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