Lakeside House

Tags: offices, steel, refurbishment

Related projects: Premier Place, Unilever Leatherhead

  • Client: Tritax
  • Architect: tp bennett
  • Completion: 2021
  • Value: £10m
  • Size: 74,886 sq ft
  • Expertise: Structures, Civils
Lakeside House - Webb Yates Engineers
Lakeside House - Webb Yates Engineers
Lakeside House - Webb Yates Engineers
Lakeside House - Webb Yates Engineers
Lakeside House - Webb Yates Engineers
Lakeside House - Webb Yates Engineers
Lakeside House - Webb Yates Engineers
Lakeside House - Webb Yates Engineers

Overlooking the Stockley Park estate, the newly refurbished Lakeside House is a modern office space with all of the latest amenities, designed to offer the best work-life balance with sustainability credentials with an EPC rating of A.

Working alongside tp bennett, Webb Yates Engineers undertook the structural and civil engineering works for the full renovation. The existing building has been extensively refurbished to a high standard, and offers 72,000 sq ft of flexible office space, a triple-height atrium which gives natural light to the centre's repositioned entrance and communal areas with a new collaboration space, new showers, changing and cycle store facilities and a new large terrace.

Understanding the existing structure was fundamental and would help inform our strategy for the alterations. We managed to source archive information from the local building control department early in the design process. The designs were then developed in response minimising the extent of structural alterations where possible. Later, opening works and ultimately the soft strip confirmed assumptions made.

The relocation of the main entrance presented the greatest structural challenge as it required the temporary support of the existing façade, allowing the lower section to be removed and then the installation of transfer beams to support the remaining facade to the upper levels.

The feature stair and atrium infill has been designed to take as much advantage of the existing structure as possible. The existing roof of the atrium has been altered to accommodate a new rooflight. This involved removing the existing rooflight and a large area of existing slab and beams. Part of the void has been infilled to create space for new roof plant.

Much of the existing below ground drainage has been reused with just local modifications, primarily to cater for the new shower block.