An exemplar of the finest Victorian architecture, the Farmiloe Building is a Clerkenwell landmark, once home to lead and glass merchants George Farmiloe & Sons, and central to London’s heritage of trade and commerce. Victorian warehouse floors – built as the strongest in London – extend from a spectacular glazed atrium revealing distinctive interiors, typified by exposed wrought-iron beams, aged paintwork, panelled offices, hoists and safes.

A frequent location for films, TV and fashion design, the conservation and refurbishment of the 40,000 sq ft Grade II-listed building transforms the warehouse building into a major commercial development in one of the capital’s most vibrant areas, close to the new Crossrail station at Farringdon.

For the refurbishment of the original 150-year-old building, Skelly & Couch incorporated improvements to the thermal fabric that are sensitive to conservation concerns associated with its listed status. The building services and environmental engineering design featured a number of energy-saving measures, including exposed thermal mass in the new-build extension with cast-in air ducts feeding perimeter fan coil units for passive heating and cooling. Heat and coolth storage, storing heat recovered from the chillers and coolth from free cooling on the roof, significantly reduces the overall energy consumption. Imaginative use of space to extend the stunning existing atrium into the new extension brings light deep into the building. The project has a BREEAM sustainability rating of ‘Excellent’.

Following its successful work on the refurbishment, Skelly & Couch was invited to work on a major fit-out for the new London headquarters of concert tickets seller Live Nation at the Farmiloe. The environmentally sensitive and responsive design achieves high specification loft-style offices, with in-built flexibility to meet the client’s future operational needs, and provides passive design solutions with additional cooling to meet peak requirements.

Images by millerhare and AWW.