A Grade II-listed Victorian warehouse in Southwark being sensitively restored & extended to provide 15,000 sqft of characterful & creative workspace, using reclaimed steel from a demolished

This sensitive restoration and extension of a derelict, Grade II Listed warehouse into 15,000sqft of creative workspace in Bankside will breathe life back into a much-loved but neglected Southwark building.

One of the last surviving Victorian warehouses in the borough, 55 Great Suffolk Street has lain vacant and untouched for the last 50 years and is on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register. The remarkable utilitarian-style building is now being conserved, upgraded and extended; bringing it back into use for the first time in half a century.

A new, distinctly-contemporary, external core structure will be almost entirely constructed using reclaimed steel. Connected by bridge-links, it will house essential modern services and amenities, such as WCs, a lift, bike store and showers, allowing the building’s original uninterrupted floorplates to be uncompromised and retained.

In a first for a UK developer, Fabrix purchased 139 tonnes of steel, from a building being demolished, for structural reuse across a number of its projects. A total of 20.35 tonnes of reclaimed steel will be used for the new external core, saving approximately 50 tonnes of embodied carbon (based on a comparison to a generic A1-A3 carbon factor of 2.5kgCO2e/kg steel for 20% recycled content steel sections).

The upfront embodied carbon of the building (modules A1-A5) is estimated to be 386kgCO2e/m2 owing to both the steel reuse and the retention of the listed warehouse, representing a 36% reduction compared to the LETI 2020 design target of 600kgCO2e/m2. The project is on track to achieve a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ accreditation and Net Zero whole-life carbon.

Trap doors, which allowed goods to be moved between floors, will be left exposed with infill glazing, retaining visual connectivity. And corrugated cladding on the new external core references the building’s use in the 19th century by Spicer Bros paper merchants.

“Retrofitting a historic warehouse was always going to be a challenge, particularly considering the desire to retain many of the key features of this Grade II listed building, whilst remaining commercially deliverable and attractive to a broad range of potential tenants. Guided by a bespoke project specific sustainability framework, developed by CBRE ESGC during initial engagement, we were able to set sustainability intentions early in the design, ensuring that they remained at the fore throughout. The impact of early and ambitious client intentions should not be underestimated, as the advance procurement of structural steel from a donor site (1 Broadgate) allowed known elements to be incorporated into the design; maximising the use of this circular material within the 55 Great Suffolk Street Project. With 97% of the building's structural steel sourced though reuse pathways, this project is an excellent example of the possibilities that a well-planned approach to the circular economy can achieve whilst demonstrating to the market a practical implementation of Circular Economy principles."
Matthew Ingham, Associate Director, CBRE