Fit
Out Projects
Fit out
work has become an important part of the construction budget,
but it was not always so.
The first
speculative office buildings in the early 19th century were
office chambers, let as rooms or suites or floors, and required
little more than redecoration by an incoming or first Tenant,
with perhaps a timber screen to separate the public and private
areas.
These buildings
were, of course, of load-bearing masonry construction with timber
floors.
The introduction
of iron framing in the second half of the 19th century and of
structural steel and reinforced concrete at the beginning of
the 20th century did not change the tendency to minimal work
by incoming or new tenants, which continued through until the
1970s.
In the post
war years speculative offices were generally of reinforced concrete
construction, with storey heights reduced to the minimum permissible,
to enable the maximum number of floors to be fitted into a height
restricted by planning considerations.
Floors were
screeded and finished with vinyl/asbestos tiles, and ceilings
were plastered or plasterboard with a shallow void.
Conduits
or ducts to floor boxes were buried in the screed and ducted
skirtings were provided, wired with electrical power.
Heating
was generally low-pressure hot water with radiators or concealed
gilled tubes, and air-conditioning was openable windows. These
minimal finishes left little scope for tenants fit our work,
which was usually limited to the construction of partitions
to individual offices, with local alterations to the light
fittings and telephone wiring threaded through the conduits
and ducts provided.
This all
changed in the early 1970s when air conditioning started to
be a tenant's
requirement
if he was to pay the higher rents, and space for data cabling
was needed. Hence increased storey heights to make space for
services above suspended ceilings and raised floors to provide
for all types of wiring.
In the mid
1980s Stuart Lipton and his colleagues were developing Broadgate
and imported the concept of "shell and core" from
the other side of the Atlantic. In those buildings the developer
provided the envelope and the completed cores, leaving the tenant
to fit out his space in an area with naked walls and floor structures.
The developer's work included the basic services for the tenant
to extend to serve his space.
Funding
institutions however understandably needed completed buildings
to provide security and thus required the tenant to fit out
his space to at least a standard commensurate with the location
and the rent. This standard, known as "category A,"
was specified and the tenant was provided with funds to pay
for that work. Most tenants required enhanced standards, as
least in some areas, and that enhancement was what is known
as "category B" work, with the cost over and above
category A funded by the tenant.
The tenant's
fit out work therefore comprises the services and the finishes
for a substantial proportion of the building and cost a substantial
proportion of the total expenditure.
It is clearly
desirable if the tenant can be developing the design of his
works at the same time as the developer's team designs the base
building, which can then incorporate the tenant's requirements.
If not, the tenant may be limited by the "shell and core"
works or even be faced with completed category A works to adapt
and alter and extend.
Most sell
and core developments are therefore pre-let, as have been the
recent fit out projects on which we have been fortunate to be
appointed, for Linklaters, Simmons & Simmons, Lovells, Morgan
Grenfell, ABN Amro and others.
In all these
projects, the tenant's team has been appointed early enough
to be involved with the developer's team in the base building
and the provisions for the tenant's space. Thus we have been
able to assist by considering structural aspects of the tenant's
architects and engineers to protect the tenant's interest and
arrange for suitable details to be incorporated in the base
build design.
This generally
includes holes and load capacity for services, particularly
UPS, load capacity for particular uses, such as catering, filing
and other heavy items, solid finishes and provision for structural
alterations to enable staircases, auditoria, fitness centres,
moveable partitions and other requirements to be constructed
as part of the fit out.
However
shell and core construction and subsequent fit out work are
not limited to offices. Our long-standing connection with the
John Lewis Partnership has meant that we have been able to help
them with the fitting out of department stores in new shopping
centres, such as those at Bluewater, West Quay in Southampton,
and Solihull.
For these
developments we have been involved in advising the John Lewis
Property, Building and Services team on their requirements for
the developer's shell, for that is all he provides, leaving
the Partnership to install the cores, mechanical and electrical
plant and all of the interior fit out. There is thus no category
A work as such since the Partnership complete the retail interior
fitting out to their own high standards.
Fit out
has become an important part of our work. It is similar to but
not identical to work on an existing building for it generally
involves the creation of a building incorporating as many as
possible for the occupier's eventual requirements, even though
the occupier is not sure precisely what he will want and bearing
in mind that none of us is equipped with a crystal ball. The
fit out includes fitting the final considered client's requirements
into the straight jacket that the base building has now become.
A challenge we enjoy.
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Cumberland
Place, Regents's Park
Readers
may be surprised to learn that demolition of the magnificent
Nash terraces, which line the boundaries of Regent's Park, was
considered in 1947. Such action would certainly have denied
Octagon the opportunity to develop no's 2.3.4 Cumberland Place
into high quality residential units, which are now being offered
for a combined sales value in excess of £17m.
The former
Marylebone Park reverted to the Crown in 1806 and Nash was commissioned
by the Prince Regent to produce a scheme for developing the
whole area as a dramatic combination of urban terraces and picturesque
landscape dotted with villas. It was to be a the end of a new
axis of development extending northwards from the Prince Regent's
residence in Pall Mall.
The spectacular frontages with their columns, statues and pediments
were merely stucco. The houses behind were of stock brickwork
with timber floors like any other London terrace from this period.
Apart from
their poor structural condition at the end of the War, rather
than restore the buildings for the well off, there was a move
to redevelop the area to serve a more 'social' purpose. The
Gorell Report commissioned by Clement Atlee's government in
1947 recommended restoration, prompted not in small part by
the recently formed Georgian Group. At the end of the day it
would seem that only Atlee's casting vote saved them. Cumberland
Place was converted into 10 flats.
Octagon have re-created three houses which have been described
in recent press articles as a 'Regency's 'palace' of the new
age'. Every stage of the renovation has had to be agreed with
the Crown Estate which retains ownership of most of the buildings
in Regent's Park.
Jonathan
Wyatt, managing director of Octagon Central London, has described
the work as less like a refurbishment, more like a total rebuild.
Some 64,000 bricks - enough to build three detached houses from
new, were need to replace parts of the brickwork, which was
crumbling away.
Hurst Peirce
& Malcolm have been pleased to assist Octagon, and their
architects Moxley Architects in this fascinating and demanding
projects.
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Regular
readers will recall the picture taken by Lawrance Hurst showing
this somewhat unusual warning sign on a City of London site.
We were pleased to receive a number of entries including:
Regular
readers may recall an article from issue 2 of Engitect about
the refurbishment of the General Offices at Waterloo Station
and the use of 'Frazzi' hollow clay blocks in the floors. Charles
Shapcott, engineer to English Heritage had obviously added this
reference to his database for when he came across similar blocks
in a Grade 2 listed church in Galley Common near Nuneaton he
sent us an e-mail to record his findings. The church, which
dates from 1906, was apparently erected for the miners working
in the area.
A
further entry in our series from the 19th Century building practices
and hazards to health is one related to the co-ordination of
building works with the building services and pipework. We hope
things have changed!