Squire & Partners has sensitively refurbished and extended the iconic Grade II-listed Space House in Covent Garden for Seaforth Land and QuadReal. The ambitious retrofit creates 255,000 sq ft of high-quality workspace, contemporary and flexible retail space at ground floor, and an improved public realm. The revitalisation of the landmark has preserved and enhanced the building to allow people to work and socialise in and around its outstanding 20^th century architecture once more.

A symbol of the 1960s commercial property boom, Space House was designed by Richard Seifert and Partners and is known for its innovative architecture, with a distinctive cylindrical tower with a pre-cast cruciform façade sat on y-shaped columns, a rectilinear block, and connecting bridge which were designed as a response to the surrounding urban context.

Built in 1968, Space House was inhabited exclusively by the Civil Aviation Authority until 2019. Having been refurbished in 1996 and again in 2003, Squire & Partners’ designs remove the layers of subsequent interventions to retain, expose, and celebrate the original architecture, whilst creating new, complementary additions to accommodate modern working environments.

The existing buildings have been reimagined, with two floors of office accommodation added to the tower and a single-storey extension to the block. The extension of the now 17-storey tower tidies up the existing rooftop plant, reinstating the original design intent for a clean set-back top floor, whilst creating a 3,600 sq ft roof terrace. The new eighth floor of the block provides meeting rooms and a Club House comprised of a bar and 5,000 sq ft terrace accessible to all tenants.

Upon entering the tower, occupants are welcomed by a spacious double-height lobby and reception. The 10,000 sq ft circular, column-free floorplates are flooded with natural light, with the top ten floors offering unobstructed 360-degree views of the city. In the block, an intimate lobby leads to eight levels of 8,000 sq ft workspace floors. The sky bridge creates contiguous workspace on the first and second floors, and a garden terrace on the third.

The egalitarian workspaces feature long sightlines, offering high levels of visual connectivity to support collaborative working. Designed in a loft style, offices feature polished concrete floors, whilst new terrazzo flooring has been installed throughout the common areas, with original mosaic tiling in the stair cores retained.

Originally built in an era advanced by the popularity of the automobile, designs reinvent the car-centric elements of the building for the future. One of three ramps to the basement has been retained to create dedicated cycle access to end of journey facilities. The existing car park now provides expansive cycle storage for 600 bikes alongside showers, lockers, drying rooms, and changing facilities. Elsewhere, the two-storey basement is punctured with a void to deliver 16,500 sq ft of flexible double-height event space.

Space House is the largest Grade-II listed building in the UK to achieve BREEAM ‘Outstanding’. The deep articulation of the existing façade provides passive shading measures, and dilapidated parts of the envelope have been replaced to meet modern standards. A new, high-performing services installation utilises air source heat pumps, and heating and cooling is provided by bespoke chilled beams, which are designed to fit seamlessly within the existing radial ceiling coffers. The revitalised building provides a highly connected and diverse digital platform for its occupiers, with Fitwel 2-star and Wired Score Platinum certification.

The existing poor quality public realm, previously used as a private car park, has been enhanced to provide links between the ground floor retail uses in the two buildings. An existing onsite petrol station canopy at the base of the tower has been enclosed to become The Filling Station café, activating the street level and opening it up to public use.

The building’s purposeful massing and strongly articulated façade have stood the test of time and have been sustainably restored to respect its brutalist character, whilst setting the standard for the future of the workplace. The needs of tomorrow’s occupier have inspired the creation of bright, generous, and democratic space, which will prolong the life of the building for many years to come.