The Eyre Estate HQ

The project is a new head office and fit-out for the Eyre Estate in St John’s Wood, north London. The project converts two adjacent former garages that had been let recently as storage facilities. It brings the buildings back into use by the estate management as a generous workplace for 12 people, designed around daylight and natural materials.

The site sits along a typical mews perpendicular to St John’s Wood High Street within the 90-acre estate in a conservation area. It is backed by a terrace of Grade II listed townhouses. The larger of the two garages was built in the 1930s and is characterised by its large open space, raw brick and exposed original steel truss roof structure. The smaller building is single-storey with a flat roof, concrete and brick frontage, and rear yard. Both are identified as local buildings of merit.

The project aims to restore, reveal and celebrate the historic structures. The external appearance of the buildings remains largely unchanged, new brickwork is reclaimed to match. The existing black timber garage doors of the 1930s shed are restored and reused, integrating an entrance doorway. New garage doors for the smaller building use a similar architectural language. The roof is insulated from above to meet regulations and replaced with slate tiles befitting of the context. New rooflight windows replace the existing ones on an automated system.

Inside, the scheme retains the building’s open character. Polished concrete floors give a continuous feel between the smaller and larger building. A front timber pod creates a reception area in the main building and contains a meeting booth and kitchenette. The main space behind is the office workspace under the original truss roof. At the rear is a second timber and glass insert with a private office and staff breakout space at ground floor and a boardroom on a new mezzanine level. The connected smaller garage provides ancillary spaces, including a WC, shower room and utility. New glazed doors from both buildings connect onto a landscaped garden.

To bring the performance up to standard, the building is insulated from the inside. It is naturally ventilated and has an air source heat pump as part of its sustainability programme. New Portland stone bricks line the space internally. These use 75 percent less carbon than standard bricks. This combines with timber joinery using surplus British-grown ash to give a crafted, natural and light feel that has enduring appeal as a workplace.