Orms has sympathetically updated and extended a 1930s London landmark
Located at the junction of New Oxford Street and High Holborn in central London, Commonwealth House has been refurbished and extended by architect Orms to provide 95,000 square feet of grade-A office space and 12,250 square feet of retail space for client TH Real Estate. The building, originally designed by the Swiss-born Beaux Arts-trained architect and planner Henry Philip Cart De LaFontaine, has been rebranded as No 1 New Oxford Street.
Orms has developed a language in keeping with the art deco and art moderne character of the building, employing the architects’ original drawings as well as original marketing documents. A new palette of solus stone, brass, dark-stained timber and ribbed glass have been used to enhance the building, alongside green hexagonal glazed tiles that have been added to the facade of the prominent clocktower prow and oriel windows on New Oxford Street. The green glazed tiles had been proposed originally by LaFontaine, but were not permitted by Giles Gilbert Scott, who was then advisor to the Crown. Orms sought to realise LaFontaine’s original vision, sourcing the tiles from Pyrolave, a manufacturer based in Castelsarrasin, France.
Orms’ £38m refurbishment has added 10,000 square feet across nine storeys, together with new lifts and bridge decks into the previous courtyard which overlook the new full-height glazed atrium at the heart of the building. Set below the atrium is a new double-height entrance and reception which opens onto New Oxford Street. A curved wall of back-lit white fluted glass illuminates the reception, while twin pendant lights reference the geometrical forms of art deco.
On the street, a consistent retail frontage has been formed by retaining the existing Portland stone piers and adding new curved bay shopfronts. A single-storey rooftop extension on the ninth floor is set back from the street between the two extended brick cores.
Rooftop terrace (ph: Morley von Sternberg)
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