PROJECT REPORT: HERITAGE & HISTORIC 39


in a steel grill raised floor, supported by six new steel columns placed along the central axis of the ground floor. A structural ‘failsafe’ was introduced in the form of steel stirrups which connect the grill to the ends of the original cast iron beams below; if one of the original columns or junctions between them and the beams fail, the stirrups will transfer the load to the wall and new columns.


A further measure was including a significant number of tie-rods which will (in the event of a cast iron element failing), take loads back through the masonry arches to the external walls. This bespoke solution was a result of the structural engineers AKT II taking a deep, investigative approach and “going back to first principles,” says Greensmith, not being driven by standard office loadings – instead they aimed for more moderate floor loads of 2.5 kN/m2


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reflecting modern office requirements. The restored facades saw the project triumph in several categories of the 2023 Brick Awards (including the Supreme Winner), but this aspect of the scheme was far from straightforward. Timber elements such as lintels, beams or pads under beam ends were all rotting to varying degrees, and


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had to be replaced with either concrete or grouting, and the leaves had to be tied back. In total, 112 new windows were added (in the apertures that had been bricked up in the conversion to a maltings). This results in one line semi-obscuring the building’s painted sign in an unusual way on the main facade. In total, 40,000 new handmade bricks from Northcot in Gloucestershire were used, and a large number were cleaned and reused, “but we had a real challenge on our hands to maintain the wobbles in the walls, to keep it looking a 225-year old building, not a half new-build.”


Interiors There was, amazingly, only one stair in the original building, but the architects exploited a vast redundant brick-built malt kiln in the centre of the masterplan as a striking circulation and reception befitting the new use. The retained kiln has a capacious pyramidal roof and extends the full height of the building, interconnected with the different levels, so “in terms of access, it ticked all the boxes.” It was a major operation to repair and clean the interiors of the kiln but it delivers an imposing entrance, enhanced by the dark


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In the tenanted


workplace areas, walls are limewashed, but their original character remains strongly


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