11 August 2022 · By Will Ing

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris has put forward plans for a seven-storey office building near Marylebone Station in north-west London

An existing four-storey office block at 26-46 Lisson Grove and 18 Haynes Place would be demolished to make way for the scheme, which would contain six levels of offices plus a reception lobby and shops at ground-floor level and cycle storage in the basement.

The building’s façade would use three brick types, lightening in tone as the building rises and is set back further from the pavement edge. It would also have externally planted terraces on the fourth to seventh storeys.

According to the AJ100 practice, its approach to the building’s façade was to provide a ‘simple, calm addition to complement the surrounding buildings’ – with bays echoing elevations of surrounding terraced buildings.

The façade bays will feature a continuous precast concrete sill on every floor, with full-height windows and brick piers sitting above. Profiled concrete spandrels sit above the windows.

AHMM said the long sills would ‘subtly counteract the predominant vertical orientation created by the brick piers’ while the spandrels will provide ‘further texture to the façade’ and ‘provide architectural interest and relief’.

The existing building on the site was built during the 1960s as a government labour exchange but AHMM said constraints, including small floor-to-floor heights, a lack of stairs and lifts and a weak existing structure meant that it needed to be demolished.

AHMM's plan for a seven-storey office at Lisson Grove

‘[Our] proposals seek to replace the existing building which has limited architectural merit and below-standard office accommodation compared with the developing market,’ the practice wrote in a design and access statement for the scheme.

AHMM suggested the new building would meet the Greater London Authority’s ‘aspirational’ target for embodied carbon – less than 970 kgCO2e/m2 – while its operational energy use would be below 70 kWh/m².

The practice said this would achieved using a CLT structural slab, concrete with a more than 50 per cent GBBS admixture, a ‘holistic approach’ to building services and an intelligent façade design.

The plans were validated at the end of July and will be ruled on by Westminster Council’s planning committee. The client for the project is Viridis Real Estate – which also developed AHMM’s The Ray in Faringdon, central London.

Tags AHMM Marylebone Office planning proposal

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