Track Record/Westminster

Oxford House College is a language school based in central London. HEAT carried out the refurbishment of their new four storey premises including creating Classrooms, a library, Common Room, Staff Room and cafeteria together with signage and branding. The design successfully used existing elements of the Edwardian interiors and created fresh and creative interior spaces for learning.

Project 117

Between the wars a number of streamlined apartment buildings appeared in London. The larger ones are known as “Mansion Flats” and even have a small apartment-within-an-apartment for a maid or housekeeper. This flat had been in the same family for fifty years and the brief was to modernise the interior.

Situated on a busy road near Lords’Cricket ground, one of the first things we did was to re-glaze the windows in sound-reducing glass. The interior was elegant and contemporary but with rich natural finishes: travertine in the bathrooms and stone on the floors. The flat was let for rental immediately on completion to an embassy on a five year let, so was judged to be a highly successful project.

Project 074

Ebury Street in Pimlico has had a chequered history. A stone’s throw from the Houses of Parliament it was quite grand when built in the 1830’s and then gently declined to one of the toughest slums in Westminster before beginning a re-gentrification in the last thirty years. For HEAT the project was the conversion and upgrading of a maisonette incorporating a lower ground floor looking out into a light well. We roofed over the light well with very lightweight glazed roofs and created a studio/library in the basement; inspired by the tiered galleries at the rear of the Soane Museum.

A large London Plane tree overshadowed the courtyard garden, so for evenings and night we hung a projector lamp in the tree which cast a leaf pattern onto the stone floor. The tree also filtered the daylight into the rooms in an interesting way that changed and so after weeks of trial and error we created a new paint colour for the interior which appeared to change with the seasons and, rather egotistically, christened it “Humphries White”.

Custom-made lighting, a stainless steel kitchen and a structural glass oriel window were some of the contemporary choices that work with the historic listed building.

Project 056

HEAT have obtained Planning and Listed Building Consent from the City of Westminster for a sensitive restoration of an early Victorian terraced house tucked behind Sloane Square.

The exterior was repointed and polished up; the interior was restored with authentic plasterwork and joinery detailing and beautiful timber panelling. At the rear permission was obtained for a rear extension, helped by the sympathetic treatment of the interior.

Project 037

HEAT have obtained planning consent from the City of Westminster for an additional storey to a mews house in Marylebone. By rebuilding the staircase and re-configuring the interior HEAT were able to maximise the space in what was a “Three dimensional jigsaw”.

These mews houses are effectively cubes in shape and rooflights and glazed slots were used to bring light into the heart of the building.

London’s Chinatown in Soho is relatively recent, dating from the 1970’s. However the buildings they occupy are some of the oldest in Soho, in this case from the Georgian period, so any changes to these structures require listed building consent. HEAT were asked, on account of their experience with listed houses in London, to obtain consent for a new shopfront, sign and entrance for a restaurant in Gerrard Street. We took the opportunity to remove some inappropriate 1970’s shopfront details and recreated original joinery and entrance features.

Project 033

HEAT have gained planning consent to rebuild a former design studio in fashionable Westbourne Grove. The front facade respects the stucco fronted villas in the surrounding streets, whilst the clever curved roof is designed to fit within rights-of-light constraints on this dense urban site whilst accommodating a new upper storey.

A double-height glass window divides the front window, allowing the front door to float in space and behind it a circulation space brings light deep into the plan.

Having secured consent for the rebuilding and the change of use, we subsequently negotiated planning consent for the excavation of a basement in this sensitive conservation area.

Project 021