Practice aiming to transform buiding with all-electric scheme aiming to ‘attract new generation’ of occupiers
KPF is working on a second facelift of Unilever’s City of London headquarters after completing a refurbishment of the grade II-listed building 20 years ago.
The practice has submitted a planning application to refurbish Unilever House, a nine-storey 1930s building which faces the river at 100 Victoria Embankment next to Blackfriars station.
Designed for investor Sloane Blackfriars Ltd and development manager 3RE, the scheme is aiming to bring the building up to modern sustainability standards to “attract a new generation of high-profile occupiers”, according to KPF.
The project team includes Core Five on costs, Francis Hunter as project manager, Arup on structures, DP9 on planning, Hoare Lea on MEP and sustainability, Turkington Martin as landscape architect, FMDC on facades and The Townscape Consultancy on townscape.
It is currently unclear if Unilever, the company behind brands include ice cream Cornetto and bleach Domestos, is planning to remain in the building which has been its headquarters for more than 90 years or vacate following the refurbishment.
Work would include adding a new roof terrace, a new lobby, remodelling the building’s atrium, creating new windows in its Portland stone facade and installing six metre-high air source heat pumps on its roof as part of a new all-electric energy system.
It would be the third major refurbishment of the neo-classical building, which was completed for Unilever in 1932 and designed by James Lomax-Simpson and Sir John Burnet & Partners.
First remodelled in the 1970s by Theo Crosby, the founder of design firm Pentagram and the architect behind the reconstruction of the Shakespeare’s Glove theatre on the South Bank, it was then refurbished for a second time by KPF which made a series of interior interventions including a contemporary atrium with a large skylight when work was completed in 2007.
This skylight would be expanded under the firm’s new proposals to increase the amount of light entering the building, while windows across the building would be simplified with glazing bars removed to enhance views towards the City and the river.
Two MEP enclosures on the roof would also be removed and replaced by new pavilions, designed as amenity and event spaces for building occupiers.
KPF said: “In response to the current climate emergency and post-Covid era, the building is ready for a second transformation to become an all-electric building and revitalise its modern workplace and amenity spaces.”
The firm’s first refurbishment was carried out by Bovis Lend Lease which was appointed to the £70m job back in 2004 by development manager Stanhope.
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