• Client: MarketHalls
• Architect: FaulknerBrowns
• Photos: Christopher Horwood
• Completion: 2018
• Expertise: Structures

Try Market Hall at Victoria Station opened in November 2018, transforming the arcaded bays of Terminus Place into a new destination offering a range of high-quality food and drink for residents, commuters and visitors to the city.

Originally built in 1909, the space previously housed an Edwardian shopping arcade, a restaurant and then a nightclub. Despite being of architectural interest, with a Grade II-listed façade, the building lay vacant until Try Market Halls acquired it and proposed to bring it back into public use.

The design of the new scheme draws inspiration from the earlier Edwardian arcade. Alterations to the external façade were minimal, enhancing the exterior but protecting the building’s heritage. Behind the façade shop fronts are reinstated.

The building has returned to its former glory. The existing structure – which utilises masonry vertical elements, steel frame supports and filler joist floors of concrete encased steels – had several defects, so a number of remedial works along with local structural alterations were proposed. These included installations of a new platform lift and dumb waiter, suspended floor, and the conversion of the original roof into a new rooftop terrace.

The result is a space for Westminster that reinvigorates an existing building and delivers a high-quality sustainable new destination for its people.