Arthur Stanley House – Reuse Projects – Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

Sat within the Charlotte Street conservation area, Arthur Stanley House sees the reinvention of a decaying 1960’s office block in Fitzrovia, central London. Originally designed by TP Bennett Architects as part of the Middlesex Hospital estate, the building opened in 1965 as a centre specialising in Physiotherapy. Originally comprised of wards and consultation rooms on the upper floors with a hydrotherapy pool in the basement, the building was home to the University of College London Hospital Trust until 2005, when the trust relocated. Since then, the building has remained vacant and left to decline.

Structurally, the existing building has a hollow pot reinforced concrete frame with brickwork elevations and single glazed windows. The new scheme, which retains more than 70% of the existing fabric, has refurbished the original brick work, added depth to the façade with the addition of generous stone reveals, and replaced the existing windows with new high quality triple glazing. The original top floor plant room and prominent loggia along the Tottenham Street elevation has been replaced with a new office floor plate and a full-length south facing terrace with far reaching views across London.

As part of the development, a new residential building has also been provided comprising of ten new homes organised around a central internal core, with two apartments at each floor. Clad in a pale concrete brick, the new residential façade responds to the immediate context of Tottenham Mews re-establishing a street frontage to what was once a barb wired lined brick wall.

The design of Arthur Stanley House celebrates the original building alongside its 21st century additions and complements the conservation area which in parts is fragmented with post-war and recent large-scale developments interspersed with lower scale, historic terraces. The refurbished building reconnects it to the townscape with a low energy building which puts is occupants’ wellbeing at its heart with external terraces, a heat recovery system and enhanced cycling facilities, making this a dynamic, forward looking new space for working and living.

New and old is left exposed within the floorplates to represent the building’s development over a 60-year period, repurposing it for a new generation by creating a design led space for the next 60 years/ Additionally, the characterful floorplates give a uniqueness not normally found in commercial floor space.