Centre Point

The renovation and retrofitting of the Centre Point Tower, completed earlier this year by Conran + Partners for developer Almacantar, has restored to life this key orientation point in central London.

The work is focused around a new public square, surrounded by retrofitted and newly formed retail units and bookended at one end by a small stack of new-build social-rent housing for Camden Council, named White Lion House.

The bridge element, now known as Centre Point Link, has been partially enclosed with large structural glass walls around a lofty new retail or restaurant unit. This maintains the sense of openness, with a generous pedestrian walkway allowing access from New Oxford Street. Internally the glazed space is animated by restored and cleaned details of the original architecture. External pilotis appear as feature elements, the emphasis thrown on their textured tiled surface. Next to this, the original space of the bank, which can be let as a separate unit, contains more carefully restored original detailing and materials: terrazzo flooring with Carrara marble inlay, precast terrazzo stair treads and a sapele timber handrail up to a mezzanine level. Meanwhile a new stair dropping to the basement reprises these details. 

White Lion House, designed by MICA Architects, comprises eight storeys of new Camden Council flats for social rent above a new retail space. Many of these are duplex, arranged up to two per floor with between one and four bedrooms. 

The flats here are generous in size. There are deep-set windows with room for a chair and a study space below the stairs. Everywhere considered detailing lends a qualitatively haptic feel to the finish, down to sapele timber flooring and handrails to the balconies.

Eckersley O’Callaghan provided façade engineering services on Centre Point Link, Centre Point House and the new-build residential block White Lion House. Centre Point Link and Centre Point House are listed buildings – the façade engineer has upgraded all of the façade to current standards, significantly improving thermal performance and ensuring comfortable internal conditions.

Pell Frischmann undertook significant design changes to Centre Point House and Centre Point Link to enhance the new public spaces. Using modern analysis techniques, it was able to reassess existing columns and justify the removal of two entire floorplates at mezzanine and first mezzanine levels to create new double-height retail space.