The Kensington Building on Kensington High Street

Bespoke signage and wayfinding

Top level office workspace

Ground floor lobby with bespoke timber panelling and curved Petersen Kolumba brick wall

Brick piers and upper level terraces

Metal fluted panels

Restoring Definition

The Kensington Building

A former 1970s department store on Kensington High Street is reimagined as a contemporary workspace that enhances the architecture, interiors and public realm. The mixed-use retrofit project also improves connectivity to Kensington High Street Underground Station through the recreation of a lost retail arcade. After stripping the building to its concrete frame and extending the structure to meet the street line on Wrights Lane, we designed new elevations in white Roman brick and pale Moleanos stone, in keeping with the area’s heritage buildings such as Derry & Toms and Barkers department stores. A remodelled five-storey frontage faces onto the high street, while a side elevation stepped back at the upper levels incorporates richly landscaped garden terraces providing a buffer between adjacent buildings. At ground floor we worked to consolidate multiple entrances and cores into a single, central lobby, with inbuilt flexibility, delivering open, naturally lit workspaces. Renewed retail frontages and the galleria further activate the building at street level. Internally, the building comprises a carefully curated material palette of exposed concrete, artisanal bricks, warm timber, and patinated copper. The retrofit combines a thermally efficient envelope with environmental systems that marry operational energy efficiency with high wellbeing standards. Openable panels within the façade allow natural ventilation, and the building integrates sophisticated sensors and controls, air source heat-pumps and photovoltaics. The project has achieved both BREEAM Excellent and WELL Gold certification and received the 2023 BCO award for Best Refurbished/Recycled Workplace.

Location

London, UK

    Status

    Completed

    Team

    Fred Pilbrow Tal Ben Amar Giuseppe Messina Elizabeth Dailey

Client

Ashby Capital, Development Manager: Janson Urban

    Gross Floor Area

    GEA 15,800 sqm

Awards

BCO Awards, Refurbished / Recycled Workplace, Winner London, 2023 WAF Awards, Completed Buildings – Office, Shortlisted, 2022 WAF Awards, Future Project – Commercial Mixed-Use, Shortlisted, 2018

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A new strategy for the frontage
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The third floor terrace
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Pontings department store in the 1950s
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Pontings fashion illustration by Joy Barnes. Some of the historic imagery associated with the building's past is used for interior graphics.
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Pontings 1970s building
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Level marker signage installed on bespoke timber panelling
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Pilbrow & Partners team in the ground floor lobby