Our proposals for Garfield House explore the hard urban grain of the Edgware Road area and the appropriate use for neglected backland sites in city centres.
Our client, the Mars Pension Fund, proposed the development of an attic storey over a purpose built 1950s office block. It is an extension of the existing office space designed to provide a capital to the brick towers with a suppressed linking piece across the main body of the building. Aesthetically, it completes the symmetry of the existing building. The fenestration of the new office extension necessarily relates to its orientation, west facing windows are shaded by large projecting roofs and east facing facades by vertical fins.
Uniquely, Westminster planning regulations require that for every new office development a corresponding residential unit must be constructed. The necessary residential component of this project is located to the rear of the office building within a mews like private street. It is formed of a four storey tower composed of vertical elements with large areas of glazing to the north and south facades. Vertical circulation is expressed within a white rendered frame and separated by a planar glazing system.
Overall the project comprises a truly mixed use development of office and residential accommodation. The new attic office storey completes a tripartite composition to this undistinguished concrete block while the residential tower provides life and use to a disused backland site.