A restored Grade II listed terrace of Georgian Houses, a re-imagined standalone Keats House building and the provision of a new office tower with retail base, all set in extensive new public realm.

New City Court seeks to enhance the area of Southwark around London Bridge station, St Thomas Street and Borough High Street by regenerating the underutilised historic yards to provide generous and accessible new public spaces, connect retail routes, and retain and restore built heritage on site.

The scheme comprises restored and enhance listed buildings provided as affordable workspace set above a new retail base, combined with a new exemplar office building set within a new generous public realm and unified by a basement that includes class leading cycle facilities.

From the outset a clear set of project aspirations have both informed and rigorously investigation over the course of four years and via extensive consultation.

These objectives can be summarised as follows:

• Retain and enhance the listed and historic buildings of merit on site
• Enhance transport links & reduce pedestrian congestion
• Create new connections & desire lines
• Create generous new public realm
• Enhance the setting of adjacent buildings
• Provide new retail including affordable
• Provide new workspace including affordable

The project has sought to minimise energy consumption from the start and has evolved in response with the increasing decarbonisation of the national grid. The scheme is a ‘trailblazer’ for the governments Building Better Partnership scheme and is currently going through the initial stages of Design for Performance to establish further opportunities to enhance the proposed strategies and systems.

An extensive whole life carbon review has examined how an already efficient structure and suite of solutions can be further fine-tuned / challenged, as well as considering more radical interventions in the London prime office market.

The scheme has also examined the paradigm shift that full offsite prefabrication and limited onsite assembly could bring inclusive of both energy and embodied carbon considerations – alongside the socio-economic contributions both local to the site and de-centralised outside of a London context.