St Martin-in-the-Fields
St Martin-in-the-Fields
We worked as engineers, conservation advisors and transport and movement consultant on the major £36m restoration and renewal of James Gibb’s Grade I listed St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square.
St-Martin-in-the-Fields is a parish church of world renown, combining worship, education and social care within one of the nation’s most splendid and influential ecclesiastical buildings.
For this major architectural and engineering project, undertaken alongside Eric Parry Architects, we advised on the removal of intrusive twentieth-century alterations while reordering the site through a unifying masterplan. Central to the scheme was a new subterranean complex beneath Church Path, accessed via a discreet, circular, load-bearing glass pavilion that provides daylight to the spaces below. The construction of this new double basement provides space for visitors, a new church hall and facilities to support the diverse functions within the church and crypt.
The design reconnected the church with the wider urban fabric of Trafalgar Square and improved accessibility throughout, balancing heritage with contemporary use.
The construction of the new basement on a highly constrained site over the Northern Line, and between listed buildings, presented considerable challenges. Our work included the careful underpinning of the new entrance pavilion, the structural adaptation of the crypt’s eighteenth-century vaults, and the integration of complex new services and spaces into the historic context.
The project delivered a transformation that preserved the church’s spiritual and architectural character while ensuring its continued role as a centre of worship, culture, and community life. It subsequently received multiple awards, including a Europa Nostra award and a Georgian Group Architectural Award, praised for its seamless integration of old and new.
“This project has been a truly epic undertaking and its completion is doubtless as much a tribute to its architect’s powers of negotiation as to the intelligence it has brought to the design. Faced with a fantastically complex set of challenges, it has somehow maintained a real singularity of vision throughout.” - Ellis Woodman writing Building Design (2008)
Awards:
Civic Trust Awards - Michael Middleton Award - Winner (2010)
Europa Nostra Awards - European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage - Winner (2010)
AIAUK Design Awards - Winner (2009)
Building Awards, Public Building Project - Runner-up (2009)
RICS London Awards, Community Benefit - Runner-up (2009)
Westminster Society Biennial Award for Urban Design - Winner (2009)
RIBA London & Design for London Public Space Award - Winner (2009)
RIBA London & English Heritage Award for Sustaining the Historic Environment - Winner (2009)
RIBA London Award - Winner (2009)
Regeneration & Renewal Awards - Highly Commended (2009)
British Construction Industry Awards, Conservation Award - Winner (2009)
Georgian Group Architectural Awards, Restoration of a Georgian Church - Winner (2007)
Video courtesy of Eric Parry Architects:
Client: Parochial Church Council