76 Upper Ground, Southbank, Lambeth
2025 Building Awards finalist - Retrofit Project of the Year
2024 WAFX Award winner - Reuse
2022 New London Award for Conservation
Client - Wolfe Commercial Properties Ltd and Stanhope PLC
Architect - Allford Hall Monoghan Morris
Contractor - Multiplex
Specialist Brickwork contractor - Lyons & Annoot
Products: solid class A bricks in blue multi, plinth bricks in blue multi, corduroy and directional paving, step nosing, chamfered and square edged paving, quarry tiles
Originally designed by Sir Denys Lasdun and completed in 1983 as IBM's London HQ, this iconic Grade II listed building sits alongside Lasdun's iconic National Theatre. Although only listed in 2020, the brutalist landmark building did not meet modern building standards and AHMM Architects were challenged with delivering the renovation and extention of the building to deliver an additional 11,000 square meters of flexible and sustainable office space.
The architect's scheme has already been celebrated for its highly energy efficient and low carbon design achieving both BREEAM Outstanding and 5 star certification under the NABERS Design for Performance standard.
Reuse has played a key part in this project with 80% of the original structure being retained including 95 tonnes of pavers and 71 tonnes of bricks.
The original bricks and pavers were made from Etruria marl clay and were made to last for generations. Architects AHMM specified also new Ketley's bricks and pavers as they provided the best match with the originals. Specialist contractors Lyons and Annoot cleaned off the old bricks and pavers and relaid them alongside the new Ketley product where they blend in perfectly. The blue multi colour, providing good tonal variation to match in with the originals so successfully that it is actually hard to see what is old and what is new!
Special step treads were made by Ketley to house the brass inserts for the internal stairs.
