17 August 2022 · By Rob Wilson, photography Tom Hatton

The practice has reworked derelict buildings and a yard in Shepherd’s Bush to create its new studio, featuring a saw-tooth roof

Originally constructed in 1891 as the workshop of the George Broad sculpture foundry, the Victorian buildings have been restored and refurbished primarily to create a new workplace for the practice’s 24-strong team.

The scheme also includes landscaped external courtyards and three rental apartments in an adjoining terrace house.

The core studio space is on a new inserted concrete mezzanine level while below this, a middle level accommodates the model workshop, WCs, and the kitchen. The kitchen door leads down to a small courtyard garden which has a large glass pivot door leading off it into the lowest level of the building. This contains the project presentation room and a double-height meeting room, a space large enough to host exhibitions or music recitals, overlooked by the mezzanine studio.

The foundry’s 15m-tall chimney, a local landmark, has been retained and restored while the tumbledown non-original roof structure has been replaced with a saw-tooth roof containing north-facing skylights, which allow for natural ventilation while minimising solar gain.

The palette of new materials includes timber – most notably the maple-slatted ceiling to the studio, as well as in-situ cast concrete and exposed structural steel, which has been integrated with the restored and retained 19th-century brickwork. The studio’s birch ply architects’ desks were designed by practice principal Tim Hatton and fabricated on site.

Sustainability and minimising energy consumption were primary design considerations. An important aim was to avoid mechanical services and to achieve environmental comfort through the use of passive measures.

The repair and reuse of the 19th-century brickwork of the foundry building and 15m-high chimney has embodied energy benefits.

Achieving U-values in excess of Part L requirements ensures that all newly constructed elements have exemplary thermal performance.

The use of underfloor heating, currently fed from gas boilers, allows the future use of air source heat pumps in tandem with photovoltaic panels. Rooftop locations have been created for these but installation has been prevented by neighbours, who were resistant to their appearance.

The building is naturally lit and ventilated through large windows and saw-tooth rooflights. These are orientated to take advantage of beneficial solar heating at either end of the day, but avoid solar gains during working hours.

The dilapidated asbestos sheet roof of the main foundry space was replaced with a new lightweight roof construction. This puts only vertical loads on to the fragile and badly leaning historic brickwork walls and led to the development of the distinctive new roof form.

Two steel trusses span from the foundry chimney at one end on to the gable wall brickwork at the other. From these primary long-span structural elements, short-span secondary steels rest on the old brick walls and support a highly insulated standing seam sheet zinc roof. Saw-tooth north-facing rooflights are built above the primary structure. Internally the slatted maple timber ceiling delivers both aesthetic warmth and acoustic softness.

While repurposing the building, it was considered important to retain a sense of the volumetric properties of the original foundry building. Lowering the ground floor through excavation and raising the roof gave sufficient height for well-proportioned spaces on two levels. The new mezzanine first floor has been kept back from the foundry chimney to create a dramatic double-height meeting room. This allows appreciation of the fine original brickwork of the chimney and serves as a reminder of the scale of the sculpture foundry space. Tim Hatton, founder and principal, Timothy Hatton Architects

Start on site March 2018 Completion date March 2019 - September 2021 (phased completion) Gross internal floor area 600m2 Form of contract or procurement route JCT immediate form Construction cost £2.4 million Architect Timothy Hatton Architects Client Timothy Hatton Architects Structural engineer Constructure Mechanical services Derham Ball Electrical services D & R Price Quantity surveyor Jackson Coles Planning consultant David Maycox Landscape design Timothy Hatton Architects Construction management Timothy Hatton Architects Main contractor D. Rowe and Sons Preliminary groundworks Cravencroft with Stilebridge Groundwork

Percentage of floor area with daylight factor >2% 75% Percentage of floor area with daylight factor >5% 75% Design life 100 years Embodied / whole-life carbon Not calculated Annual CO2 emissions Not available

Tags Architecture studio roof Shepherd's Bush Timothy Hatton Architects

Sign in or Register a new account to join the discussion.