458 Oxford Street

Located on London’s most renowned shopping street, our scheme for the M&S flagship store is a radically low-carbon structure guided by passive design principles that will support the next century of success for this nationally important retailer. The new mixed-use retail and commercial scheme is set to deliver a resilient, state of the art retail environment and flexible workspaces for 1,400 additional employees, along with improved public realm and generous urban greening. The scheme’s new ground floor retail space will be an open, accessible daylit space, complemented by a welcoming sequence of outdoor spaces for nearby workers, shoppers and visitors. A pale brick façade, aligned to the height of the surrounding buildings, will incorporate bronze windows with mixed-mode ventilation and bespoke solar shading and an engineered timber cornice will provide additional shade and articulation. Above, set-back storeys of future-facing workspaces will include generous, landscaped terraces, set to exceed GLA and Westminster urban greening targets, to enhance biodiversity and boost employee wellbeing. Overall, the building’s low operational demands will place it within the top 1% of the UK’s most energy-efficient buildings. To ensure M&S remains at the heart of Oxford Street, we worked closely with our client and collaborators to explore designs for this site including full and partial retention, deep retrofit, and low carbon newbuild. The final design’s embodied carbon is comparable to a deep retrofit, and is projected to achieve carbon payback in 11 years, with a building lifespan of 120 years. We are currently working with ARUP on developing additional material reuse in post-tensioned vault ceilings, to further reduce its environmental impact.