Repurposing and reuse at 20 Hanover Square
Our bold scheme for this Grade ll* townhouse, one of only two of the original houses surviving on Hanover Square, exemplifies our practice’s ethos of innovatively repurposing listed buildings for new uses, preserving their heritage and embodied energy and importantly also, preparing them for future change.
We have returned number 20 to its 1720’s layout boldly removing the accretions of many years including an early 19th century listed rear extension built in what had formerly been the townhouse’s garden. In its place we put a delightful landscaped public courtyard, and we closed the building’s rear elevation with a new core including lifts to provide DDA access and accessible service risers to all floors.
English Heritage (now Historic England) supported these moves because they restored the original form of the townhouse and because we meticulously repaired the interior: the magnificent stairwell with its cantilevered stone staircase beneath an elegant glass dome, also fireplaces, plaster ceilings and fine joinery.
Although initially targeted at the office market the versatile workspace is now occupied by the Jimmy Choo Academy (JCA). The building’s flexibility is demonstrated by JCA’s use of the piano nobile for making space with industrial sewing machines and higher levels for meeting and conference space, library and seminar rooms plus incubator spaces for start-ups.
Other careful, detailed measures have been taken to future-proof the historic fabric, for example a grid of structured cabling concealed beneath the original floorboards to enable future installation of floor boxes.
20 Hanover Square - a 300 year old Grade II* listed building repurposed as a design school
Reinstating the plaster ceilings to their former glory
Recreating the mouldings from the original ceiling
Making the clerestory ceiling window structurally safe and accessible for cleaning and maintenance
View up towards the restored clerestory ceiling window
Restored interior in use by the Jimmy Choo Academy
Repurposing and reuse at 20 Hanover Square
Our bold scheme for this Grade ll* townhouse, one of only two of the original houses surviving on Hanover Square, exemplifies our practice’s ethos of innovatively repurposing listed buildings for new uses, preserving their heritage and embodied energy and importantly also, preparing them for future change.
We have returned number 20 to its 1720’s layout boldly removing the accretions of many years including an early 19th century listed rear extension built in what had formerly been the townhouse’s garden. In its place we put a delightful landscaped public courtyard, and we closed the building’s rear elevation with a new core including lifts to provide DDA access and accessible service risers to all floors.
English Heritage (now Historic England) supported these moves because they restored the original form of the townhouse and because we meticulously repaired the interior: the magnificent stairwell with its cantilevered stone staircase beneath an elegant glass dome, also fireplaces, plaster ceilings and fine joinery.
Although initially targeted at the office market the versatile workspace is now occupied by the Jimmy Choo Academy (JCA). The building’s flexibility is demonstrated by JCA’s use of the piano nobile for making space with industrial sewing machines and higher levels for meeting and conference space, library and seminar rooms plus incubator spaces for start-ups.
Other careful, detailed measures have been taken to future-proof the historic fabric, for example a grid of structured cabling concealed beneath the original floorboards to enable future installation of floor boxes.
