Renovations in Clerkenwell

Nearly every home in Clerkenwell started life as somewhere people worked. Print rooms, jewellery workshops, warehouses and light industrial floors around Clerkenwell Green and Exmouth Market were converted into flats over the last thirty years, and they behave nothing like a house. The frame does the structural work, the internal walls mostly do not, the floor plate may be concrete or timber on iron columns, and the windows are enormous. Renovating an EC1 flat is precision work inside somebody else's structure, and GS Renovation approaches it that way, with the engineer appointed before anything is committed to.

What Is Actually Holding The Building Up

In a converted workshop the load is carried by columns, beams and the frame between them, while a good proportion of what you see is plasterboard on studs put in at conversion. That sounds liberating and often is, but it also means the one wall you want gone can be the exception. Identifying which is which is not a job for tapping and guessing, particularly in buildings where the original structure has been boxed in. We open small inspection points and put a structural engineer in front of the evidence before anyone prices a demolition.

The floor slab is the other hard limit. Chasing services into a structural slab or coring through it is not something a contractor decides on site, and where a penetration is genuinely necessary it needs a design and the freeholder's agreement. Drainage falls were set when the building was converted, which is why a kitchen or bathroom can usually shift within a zone but not travel across the flat without pumped waste and a compromise on ceiling height. We would rather set out those constraints at the first visit than discover them once a layout has been drawn and fallen in love with.

Comfort In A Building Designed For Machines

These floors were built to be worked in during daylight, not lived in through February. Single glazed steel windows lose heat quickly and run with condensation, exposed soffits and columns cold bridge, and a tall volume takes a long time to warm and no time at all to lose it. Slim secondary glazing set behind the original frames is usually the intervention that changes the most, because it keeps the industrial glazing exactly as it looks from the street while cutting the draught and the noise. Insulation, where it goes in, has to be detailed so moisture is not driven into a cold surface behind it.

Acoustics work the same way. A shell with hard floors, exposed structure and large glass reflects everything, and evening trade around Exmouth Market carries further than people expect at the top of a building. Acoustic underlay within the terms of your lease, heavier joinery, and lined and insulated stud walls in the right places make a flat noticeably calmer without turning it into a conventional apartment. Ventilation deserves the same thought, since sealing a leaky building improves comfort only if fresh air is deliberately provided afterwards. We would far rather specify that at the outset than be asked to solve a condensation complaint in the second winter.

Where most Clerkenwell projects start: whole-house refurbishment in Clerkenwell, everything we cover across Islington, renovations in Angel, renovations in Highbury and building regulations explained.