British Academy at 10-11 Carlton House Terrace
British Academy at 10-11 Carlton House Terrace
As both conservation specialists and structural engineers, we are working with Wright & Wright Architects to provide world-class lecturing and conference spaces for the British Academy within the highly ornate and architecturally significant Grade I listed building at 10-11 Carlton House Terrace.
The British Academy is the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences. They were looking to redevelop the property to accommodate staff growth and to enhance the working environment with new and flexible ways of working post-pandemic. The scheme centres on the addition of the latest hybrid event technology, allowing an interested public throughout the world to connect with the work of the Academy.
The £9 million development, aided by a lead £5 million grant from the Wolfson Foundation, will transform a warren of corridors and rooms in the Academy’s lower floors into three, double-height event spaces technologically equipped for conferences, lectures, workshops, festivals, and performances. This follows a significant uptake in online and hybrid events post-pandemic from the academic community and event-going public. Consequently, the proposals developed by our engineers alongside Wright & Wright encourage greater staff collaboration through the introduction of new meeting spaces for both informal and impromptu conversations and formal boardroom meeting rooms, as well as one-to-one meeting rooms for teleconferencing or telephone calls and creative places to aid collaborative working. Sustainability interventions include and air source heat pump providing carbon-free heating and the building will be the first Grade I listed building in Westminster to be granted permission to install double glazing, allowing for better climate control, and all heating will be carbon-free.
Our conservation work advised how the existing historic architectural features of the John Nash townhouse could be enhanced with sympathetic architectural interventions made to improve legibility and connectivity. We carried out a detailed room-by-room assessment of the complex building, researching the many changes and alterations that have occurred over its existence. This detailed understanding allowed us to produce an assessment of significance based on scholarly research, which informed the location of new facilities and the insertion of supporting spaces in a manner that not only maintained but also enhanced the significance of this lavishly decorated but hard-working, functional building. We worked in collaboration with Wright & Wright to advise on their proposals to reconfigure the offices on the upper floors of the building by producing detailed plans that illustrated the age and significance of fabric on these floors, which helped guide the extent and nature of intervention to the workspaces. This work formed the basis of successful discussions with Historic England and Westminster City Council, who granted full planning and Listed Building Consent for the works.
Client: The British Academy
Architect: Wright & Wright