Stiff + Trevillion
Stiff + Trevillion are a well-established West London practice who have a strong reputation for elegant and sophisticated architecture. Collaboration is at the heart of the practice’s ethos. From the development of the brief and initial scheme with the client, to the delivery of the project with the design team, everyone works together.
Established in the early 1980’s the studio employs around 45 people. The two founders, plus four directors, lead the design and delivery process. A mix of interior designers and furniture designers, as well as architects and technicians are employed, reflecting the work done across the commercial, restaurant, retail and private residential sectors.
Stiff + Trevillion design buildings and interiors, and whilst the majority of their commercial and residential work is in London, they carry out projects across the UK and overseas. In particular, they have built strong working relationships with central London Boroughs such as Westminster City Council, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, City of London and Southwark.
The Studio is an active member of the NLA, The London Society, The Royal Academy, The Architecture Club and City & Westminster Property Associations among many others. The Practice is RIBA accredited and they are supporters of the Stephen Lawrence Trust and the Architects Benevolent Society.
15 Bishopsgate
Part of the Tower 42 Estate in the City of London, for Tower Limited Partnership, the building takes great influence from the nearby Gibson Hall, a Grade-I listed former banking hall composed of Portland stone in a rich, classical style. Key to the new building’s philosophy was to provide a calm, neutral backdrop to the parapet statues of Gibson Hall, in the same Portland stone composition. The building envelope is composed of columns and beams that reduce in width over the height of the building, giving a solid appearance at ground floor and reducing to a lightweight colonnade at sixth floor level. Large stainless-steel framed windows echo the materials of nearby Tower 42.
The main frontage of the building is informed by the height of the Hall’s façade. Two setbacks on the fourth and sixth floor preserve the views of the Hall, as well as providing sufficient space under the cantilevered leaves of Tower 42. These also create generous terraces for occupiers, with views across the city skyline to Monument.
The scheme also included the construction of four simple glass retail pavilions along the northern pedestrian route that connect Bishopsgate and Old Broad Street. The new retail provisions, which occupy previously unused areas of the estate, provide much-needed amenities for local occupiers and attractive social spaces that encourage public movement.
Beak Street
40 Beak Street was purchased by Damien Hirst, the renowned British artist, to be used as a London studio and base. Fulfilling part of the requirement for high ceilings, a voluminous and dramatic double height space was created by a void in the second floor slab. A ‘letterbox’ opening through the floor slabs was retained, to enable large scale art works to be hoisted up and down the building. A high level of craftsmanship to the building’s glazed brick exterior offers visual stimulation and reflects the rich artistic context of the site. Collaborating with artist Lee Simmons, the window reveals are encased in large cast aluminium panels to give the illusion of deep relief and texture. This unique textural work feathers out around the buildings cornice to crown the glazed façade.
A darker, deep blue brick at the base of the building, with lighter sea green in the main body, grounds the building, breaking up the massing and alluding to the process of hand dipping each glazed brick. The contrasting hues also complement the neighbouring pale green glazed brick façade of 38a Beak Street with its stone exterior at ground floor. External roof terraces at third, fourth and on the uppermost level provide much needed outdoor space for the buildings tenants in the dense location.
Beak Street
Neal’s Warehouse
The scheme for Seven Dials Market will transform the 19th Century Thomas Neal’s Warehouse to provide 22,000 sq. ft. of market and dining space across ground and basement level. Split into three core areas, it will deliver a unique mix of produce, food retail, street food and entertainment to meet the needs of Londoners and tourists both day and night.
The design of the building responds directly to the property’s heritage, with original features carefully retained and refurbished. Cast iron beams and columns will be left visible, as will the brick arches that are synonymous with historic market spaces. Stiff + Trevillion’s design is contemporary in style yet rooted in its heritage.
Opening in summer 2019, the market will be run by KERB, who will be operating inside a building for the first time.
Paul Street
Stiff + Trevillion has completed a 4,0282m mixed-use development on the historic junction of Paul Street and Leonard Street.
The development forms a critical phase in bringing new coherence and increased public activity to the South Shoreditch area, establishing the area as a vibrant new destination. Delivered as a response to the drivers uses within the area, the mixed use of work, leisure and living has regenerated the urban block commercially and socially and helps to promote the public realm of Leonard Street Circus.
Memory of the ecclesiastical past and the relationship of converted religious building in the area was a primary consideration in Stiff + Trevillion’s scheme. Continuing with a similar yellow hued brick of the 17th century church but modernising with geometric fenestration, the new building refreshes and enlivens the existing gothic walls, picking up on the vertical typology of South Shoreditch 19th Century industrial buildings and alluding to its current 21st century environment.
Stiff + Trevillion’s five storey scheme was designed as a homogenous single building with a continuous façade of floor to ceiling glazing to emphasise the verticality of the block. With an active frontage along the street of retail and café facilities, private residential accommodation and office spaces have access to a lower courtyard formed partially by the historic listed wall. Independent access to the lower ground allows for the potential use as a gallery space.
The River Building
The River Building is a two-storey structure bridging the landmark towers of Cannon Street Station. Stiff + Trevillion were commissioned on behalf of Blackstone Group to lead the design to re-imagine the site as new Grade A workspace. Embracing the unique character and constraints of the original structure, the design has repositioned the building to fit a newly emerging tenant profile, ensuring wellness, economic, legislative and technological priorities were met whilst ensuring high standards for sustainability.
Upgrading the on-floor MEP systems and reconfiguring services distribution within the space meant the architects design team achieved bright, fresh and unusual office accommodation with improved floor to ceiling heights, levels of natural light and increased occupational densities. The engineering teams worked hard to retain rather than replace MEP systems where they could, reducing waste, cost and time whilst contributing to much improved comfort, energy efficiency and commercial return.
Adhering strictly to the London View Management Framework, new south façade glazing and atrium roof lights were installed to improve energy performance, natural lighting levels, interior ambience and the building’s appearance.
The positive commercial attributes of the original building have been enhanced to reposition the building for new innovative organisations in the heart of the traditional City. This is the perfect example of a building being given a new lease of life, preserving it for the next 25 years plus.
