All Saints, Austral Street
All Saints, Austral Street
As engineers and conservation advisors, we collaborated with EPR Architects to transform a large, former hospital into a contemporary studio for the practice.
The project is an exemplar of how historic buildings can be imaginatively retrofitted. The All Saints ‘Annexe 1’ building was a former hospital acquired by the Imperial War Museum in 1986 to house technical and support staff offices that supported the main Museum site on Lambeth Road. As part of a Museum masterplan, the building was deemed no longer suitable because of the cost of maintenance for the historic building.
Because of our engineering experience transforming historic buildings into outstanding workplaces, EPR Architects approached us to help reconfigure the building. The project team wanted to showcase the rich character of the original building whilst making bold interventions that would safeguard its future as a viable workplace. Our engineering team’s advice involved demolishing the remaining post-war rear extensions; constructing two two-storey infill extensions to the rear of the building and internal work; reconfiguring the courtyard building entrance and creating external landscaped areas.
The use of embodied carbon was carefully monitored with embodied carbon analysis and kept to a minimum through our design choices. Where new structural materials were necessary, such as the hybrid steel and timber structure used to form the new extensions, these were selected for their low carbon content.
The footprint of the building during its operational life has been significantly improved by the project team’s sustainability strategy. A fabric-first approach was adopted to sympathetically upgrade and replace poor performing existing building elements with new thermally efficient alternatives. This approach, combined with a mixed-mode ventilation strategy that allows passive cooling of the studio spaces and an all-electric heating and cooling system, enabled the building to be Net Zero Carbon in operation. The project also achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating, whilst embodying WELL building standards. The project went on to win a RIBA London Award and be shortlisted for the 2023 NLA Environmental Prize.
Client and Architect: EPR Architects