Squire and Partners Annual 2025

‘Make do and Mend’.

UK Government Campaign to reduce clothing waste in WW2

The Second World War campaign of Make do and Mend sought to encourage people to keep their old clothes and repair, renew, reinvent, repurpose and transform them into something new in the process. This was promoted as a positive, collaborative and creative process that also helped society in difficult times.

In a time of rising interest rates, construction costs and taxation, environmental concerns, planning difficulties and stagnant values, the focus for a lot of our work has been on repurposing existing buildings. We are taking existing building stock and mending it. In the process we are transforming these buildings into something new, exciting and innovative whilst retaining the character and soul of the existing form.

Our architectural philosophy is to design buildings drawn from place with a link to the past but looking to the future. The repurposing of existing buildings is possibly the most literal and physical manifestation for that philosophy.

We love peeling back the onion skin of existing buildings, understanding them, hearing their tales through the walls and the floors and then breathing new stories into them, like an eternal palimpsest of architectural intervention.

With that in mind the annual this year features many buildings we have completed this year, or are working on, that seek to reinvent and repurpose buildings for a changing society.

The Conran Building – This listed building in Butlers Wharf is classic of its time. Created in the late 1980’s it stands as a testament to three behemoths of British Design: David Mellor, Sir Michael Hopkins and Sir Terrance Conran. Working with the building was a real pleasure and integrating new modern systems and interventions was both challenging and rewarding. The result is a repurposed building that celebrates the original design whilst adding another contemporary layer.

Fitzroy Street – A complex project requiring complete refurbishment and modernisation of a building that had already been extended and adapted multiple times. A new entrance portal was created; a lower ground floor amenity space and feature stair was opened to the atrium. Tea points and breakout spaces were added to each floor, and the lifts were extended to roof level to provide a new shared roof terrace with bar facility.

Space House – The extending and repurposing of this modernist classic shows what can be done with the right purpose and commitment. A LEED platinum project, the M&E integration in the tower is a work of art. Best in class end of journey facilities and careful, crafted interior design through the public facing spaces have made this one of the most exciting buildings to come to market this year.

Devonshire Square - This project, again working with a Richard Seifert building, completely reimagined a large block of a wider masterplan. The entrance experience was magnified and enhanced Estate wide landscaping was created along with new terraces and balconies at each floor. The project has been incredibly successful and shows what is possible when a shared vision is implemented coherently.

Nexus Club – Working with the same clients as Albany Bahamas we created the Nexus club’s first London home in an old Georgian building in South Kensington. With links to The Rolling Stones this private member’s club has become the place to be in Kensington and mixes a heritage English feel with classic contemporary

design creating a series of spaces and terraces that dream up an old building all over again.

Belgrave House – Designed by the practice in 2002 it is time to revisit and refurbish this large building in Victoria. The bones are good but even then, we were thinking about design as ‘long life and loose fit’ so the refurbishment is a simple update. The reception area is being rethought to provide a stair to first floor encouraging active use and the carpark is being repurposed into end of journey cycling facilities and other amenity spaces. A seamless collaboration between S&P interiors and architecture allowed the design to focus on retaining as many existing fixtures and finishes as possible, whilst creating a new, fresh feel.

We continue to design and build new buildings and are incredibly proud of some significant projects that have been completed or reached significant milestones this year:

St Regis Residences, Abu Dhabi – drawing its inspiration from the windblown sand sculptures in the local desert landscape and the rippling water of the Persian Gulf this building rises out of the ground as a new landmark for Al Maryah Island. As if sculpted by the elements the large projecting balconies provide high quality amenity space whilst also protecting the façades from the harsh desert sun.

One Thames City – The final chapter in the huge masterplan in Vauxhall these series of buildings complete the landscape park in the middle of the masterplan and bring a calm and unified character to an area that feels like most of the architecture is in competition.

TIDE – A significant new workspace building in Southwark. Drawing its inspiration from the ebb and flow of the river, the brick façade of the building employs cutting-edge water jet technology to give the brickwork a fluid quality, challenging the preconceptions of what is possible with this material.

Colebrook Court – Another significant planning consent in RBKC, a borough in which we have delivered some incredible buildings. This project on Sloane Avenue provides a unique and distinct geometric taller building on Sloane Avenue with a variety of brick and stone textures, and connects to a wider masterplan at the rear. It is the latest in a series of building in RBKC that work and reimagine vernacular architecture and materials in a contemporary way.

Dean Bradley House – A senior Living development that provides much needed accommodation type for an ageing population and which responds to the context of the surrounding area in a new and contemporary way.

As always, we enjoy other creative outlets that bring variety to the day-to-day work of the practice. We have entered a competition for a new art gallery in Helsinki, continue our long relationship with M&S developing their branding design code, created a Tea House for the Japanese company TOTO and managed to convert our Winter Windows light displays into an installation that goes all over Brixton on all the lamp posts at Christmas.

We live in a time of growing pressure on resource and finances, but this leads to an opportunity to re-examine what we already have, renew, repurpose, recreate and rebirth. It produces new design challenges but if done right creates a layered history to London, where the past is remembered and preserved but overlaid with the present and future in an increasingly joyful and interesting way.

Make do and mend feels like a mantra not just for architecture but for many walks of life, we’re committed to it.

Awards

art’otel Hoxton London

WAN Awards, Commercial Buildings Gold winner

AJ Architecture Awards, Leisure finalist

BREEAM Awards, People’s Choice finalist

NLA Awards, Retail & Hospitality finalist

One Twenty King’s Road Brick Awards, Commercial finalist

Squire & Partners

Building Design Architect of the Year Award, Refurbishment & Reuse finalist

7 Devonshire Square

AJ Retrofit & Reuse, Decarbonisation finalist

AJ Architecture Awards, Reuse finalist

Mix Awards, Workspace (>70,000 sqft) finalist

Space House

Mix Awards, Workspace (>70,000 sqft) winner

Mix Awards, Inside Out winner

WAN Awards, Commercial Buildings Bronze winner

AJ Retrofit & Reuse, Conservation & Heritage finalist

AJ Architecture Awards, Reuse finalist

BREEAM Awards, Refurbishment and Fit & Out category finalist

BREEAM Awards, People’s Choice category finalist

Camden Design Awards winner

Dezeen Awards, Workplace category longlist

Dezeen Awards, Sustainable Refurbishment category finalist

NLA Awards, Retrofit highly commended

Triptych Bankside

AJ Architecture Awards, Mixed-use finalist

SFE Façade Design and Engineering Awards, finalist

TIDE Bankside

BCO, Commercial Workspace finalist

Brick Awards, Commercial finalist

AJ Architecture Awards, Workplace finalist

Art Academy at Bankside

Type: Education

Location: Bankside, London

Status: Completed

Design and fit out of Art Academy London’s new Bankside campus, located within the Triptych Bankside development. The campus comprises gallery space, shop, café and flexible studio space in proximity to Tate Modern to extend the area’s cultural offer and increase the charity’s footprint and reach.

Asia Mountain Villas

Type: Private Residence

Location: Asia

Status: Concept

Squire and Partners were commissioned to prepare three concept designs for a complex of villas to be situated on a hill side site overlooking a lake in Central Asia. The complex was to provide all year round accommodation for a large family . The large site had been cleared apart from one remaining oak tree which became the inspiration for the masterplan and the arrangement of the villas on the site.

There were several family villas located on the site along with one main villa. Three concept designs were prepared, an organic form derived from the shape of an oak leaf, a cluster of small square forms reminiscent of a hillside village and a series of forms under mono-pitch roofs inspired by mountain chalets.

The plan form of each villa was similar, the largest main villa was designed so that the main entrance space would be built around the remaining oak tree.

Local stone engraved with patterns taken from the shadow of a tree were complimented with bronze coloured metalwork, used in the manufacture of traditional vases in the region.

Belgrave House

Type: Office refurbishment

Location: Victoria, London

Status: On site

Originally completed by Squire and Partners in 2004, Belgrave House is undergoing a refurbishment to bring the building up to modern day standards as a best in class workspace. Blending new and sustainable materials with existing finishes, layers are added to spaces whilst honouring the existing quality of the building.

Cavendish Kiosks

Type: Retail, refurbishment

Location: London, UK

Status: Completed

The sensitive refurbishment of existing retail units at 315317 Canberra House on Regent Street to create an appealing, contemporary space whilst celebrating the Grade II-listed building’s unique 1920s features.

45 Clapham South Side

Type: Mixed use

Location: London, UK

Status: Planning

As part of a strategy to upgrade and consolidate their existing outdated education buildings and ancillary properties, Squire & Partners is working with Lambeth College and developer London Realty to deliver 750 new homes across two sites: Brooklands and Thornton House. The latter sits on the Clapham Campus and replaces a series of existing, outdated buildings which are no longer fit for purpose with a masterplan incorporating a new Gateway Education Centre, six residential buildings and new public realm.

Colebrook Court

Type: Mixed use

Location: Kensington, London

Status: Planning

Squire & Partners achieved unanimous planning approval from Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea for Colebrook Court, a new residential-led mixed use development on Sloane Avenue that will deliver much-needed new homes in a low carbon, energy-efficient development that contributes to RBKC’s ambition to be carbon neutral by 2040.

Conran Building

Type: Workspace refurbishment

Location: Shad Thames, London

Status: Complete

Designed by Sir Michael and Patty Hopkins for David Mellor CBE and later acquired by Sir Terence Conran, 22 Shad Thames, now acquired by Amazon Capital and Lateral, has been reimagined into 16,000 sqft of contemporary workspace for multiple tenants, modernising the existing fabric and improving its sustainability credentials.

Atrium and breakout areas

Dean Bradley House

Type: Healthcare

Location: Westminster, London

Status: Planning 2023

Squire & Partners’ designs for Dean Bradley House in Westminster for renowned care home operator Medici Lifecare were approved in 2023. The flexible consent for clinical or care home uses on the site responds to an established need for this type of provision in Westminster.

Community

British Embassy visit to Cambodia with Greenshoots

Senior Partner Tim Gledstone travelled to Phnom Penh to join a UK-Cambodia architecture roundtable hosted by British Chamber of Commerce Cambodia. He also presented our AgriTech Centre Cambodia project at a celebration for the King’s birthday at the British Embassy.

BBC News: Winter Windows at The Southbank Centre

Over the long, dark nights draw in, our Winter Windows commission for Southbank Centre’s 2025 Winter Light festival brought joy and light to London’s riverside. The Winter Windows initiative, which has run for eight years as a collaboration with local Lambeth school children at our own Department Store in Brixton, was displayed at the Southbank Centre for a second year running

Advocacy Academy

Brixton-based Advocacy Academy train young people with lived experience of injustice to achieve long-term systemic change for themselves and the communities they live in. Our Modelshop provided furniture and custom neon lights to furnish their new Liberation Centre, which is the hub of their activity.

Build the Way x Squire & Partners

Build the Way is a nine month entry-level architecture traineeship providing an accessible route into careers in design. As part of their training, welcomed five trainees to spend the day with us in our Illustration Department.

Open City Young City Makers

Our education outreach team recently had the privilege of supporting Young City Makers, an initiative by Open City that brings learning to life through the lens of the built environment. This year’s theme, Play, tackled a pressing issue in urban design: How can we reintroduce joy, spontaneity, and inclusivity into our cities. The volunteers ran two workshops in the school and a field trip, culminating in the creation of models representing an ideal city.

Students from Epsom College visited our Modelshop to learn more about careers in the creative industries and different pathways into training.

Brixton Bugle Art Show

We were delighted to make the (playable!) trophy for the Brixton Bugle Summer Art Show for the sixth year running.

Tim Gledstone presented the gong to winner Valentina Florez Vasquez at the closing ceremony.

Art Academy Opening

We celebrated the opening of Art Academy’s new Bankside campus at an official ribbon cutting ceremony. From concept design through to delivery, we have accompanied Art Academy in realising their vision for a new, generous home located within the Squire & Partners designed Triptych Bankside development for JTRE London.

Devonshire Square, Building 7

Type: Workspace

Location: City of London, London

Status: Completed 2024

Squire & Partners has sensitively refurbished and extended Building 7 at Devonshire Square in City of London – as one of a pair of adjacent buildings the practice is reimagining for client Nuveen – to create a vibrant office-led campus on the Liverpool Street site.

Fitzroy Street

Type: Office refurbishment

Location: Fitzrovia, London

Status: Completed 2024

Refurbishment of 15 Fitzroy, a workspace building located in the heart of Fitzrovia, adjacent to the BT Tower. Formerly the London headquarters of ARUP, the building has been transformed and reconfigured from a single-tenant office into a contemporary, sustainable environment for multiple tenants, while retaining 95% of its original structure.

Concept sketches

Helsinki Competition

Type: Museum competition

Location: Helsinki, Finland

Status: Competition

Proposal for Helsinki Architecture & Design Museum located on the city’s South Harbour and set to host exhibitions on the architecture and design of Finland, showcasing over 900,000 objects.

Services

M&S Design Code

Type: Retail

Location: Global

Status: Ongoing

A design code created to refurbish the existing building stock of M&S through a framework of different store types and how to invigorate them.

Nexus Club London

Type: Hospitality & Leisure

Location: South Kensington, London

Status: Completed 2024

The UK’s first private members club by Nexus Luxury Collection, adding to its portfolio of clubs around the world including New York City, Florida and the Bahamas. Located in South Kensington, the building’s interiors have been reimagined with a design that celebrates its original Georgian features and provides four floors of contemporary lifestyle, social and wellness spaces.

Top: Ground floor plan

Bottom: Close-up of cafe

Events

Practice Restructure

Space House

Type: Workspace refurbishment

Location: Covent Garden, London

Status: Completed

Sensitive refurbishment and extension of the iconic Grade II-listed Space House in Covent Garden designed by Richard Seifert and Partners. The ambitious retrofit for Seaforth Land will create 255,000 sq ft of BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ workspace, contemporary and flexible retail space at ground floor and an improved public realm. Interventions will retain, expose and celebrate the original architecture, whilst creating new, complementary additions to accommodate modern working environments.

New precast cruciforms being delivered to site, with detailing and materiality matching the original elements

St Regis Branded Residences, Abu Dhabi

Type: Residential

Location: Abu Dhabi, UAE

Status: On site

Landmark residential development located on Al Maryah Island in Abu Dhabi. Rising 38 storeys, the tower features 161 luxury residences that seamlessly blend contemporary design with state-of-the-art facilities to create a modern and immersive living experience.

Thames City

Type: Residential

Location: London, UK

Status: On site

A residential masterplan that is split into two phases and seeks to maximize the potential of the wider Vauxhall Nine Elms neighbourhood and benefit from extensive views.

Thoughts and Opinions

What I Wish I’d Known

In celebration of our junior interior designer Briony Knowles receiving a Mix 30 Under 30 award, her mentor Maria Cheung was invited to contribute advice to the younger generation based on her own professional experience.

Yale School of Architecture

Senior Partner Henry Squire is the Eero Saarinen visiting Professor of Architecture for autumn 2025 term, leading a Studio focused on sustainable design.

Natural Stone Journal

Tim Gledstone contributed to the Natural Stone Journal, examining the beauty and versatility of the material as demonstrated in our Stone Tapestry installation piece.

Historic England Developer’s Reception

Associate Partner Cindy Wong was invited to present the practice’s retrofit approach at a Developer’s Reception organised by Historic England

James Gray at BIM Automation Networking Event

Associate Partner and Head of BIM

James Gray delivered “Building Intelligence: Leveraging AI in AEC” at the BIM Automation Networking event, sharing insights on how AI and the Model Context Protocol can transform AEC software workflows.

NLA Adaptive Reuse study

The practice’s retrofit work was spotlighted in a study launched by NLA on successful reuse strategies across the capital.

British Chambers of Commerce & Barclays roundtable –Sustainable Property Investment & Retrofitting Real Estate

Partner Bettina Brehler was invited to join a roundtable on sustainable design, contributing ideas regarding the role of data in driving energy efficiency improvements, how public policy can incentivise green investment in the built environment and the importance of ecosystem support and expert advice for both tenants and property owners.

Workplace 3000 podcast

Partner Maria Cheung was invited by WRKPLC to discuss her vision of future office design for their podcast series.

TIDE

Type: Workspace

Location: Bankside, London

Status: Completed

Net zero carbon workspace development which extends the cultural regeneration of Bankside eastwards, drawing activity from Tate Modern and the Globe Theatre. Generous external terraces offer unparalleled views across the river and beyond, whilst a crafted water jet cut brick façade is inspired by the concept of erosive tidal flow.

Jeanette Barnes

Thames Unfolded

TOTO Teahouse

Type: Retail

Location: London

Status: Completed 2024

Building upon our ongoing collaboration with TOTO, ‘The Beauty of Shadows’ is an installation designed by Squire & Partners for the Japanese bathroom brand’s inaugural stand at this year’s HIX LDN.

Urban Regeneration Project, Abu Dhabi

Type: Masterplan and Regeneration

Location: Abu Dhabi

Status: On site

Warwick Road Masterplan

Type: Masterplan

Location: London, UK

Status: Completed

Located on a prominent site in Kensington, the masterplan for Warwick Road creates a residential-led development informed by the pattern of garden squares inherent in the historic planning of Kensington and Chelsea. Residential buildings are accompanied by a sustainable mix of uses within the development, including community uses, retail spaces and a primary school.

Social

Serpentine Pavilion visit

Annual visit to the Serpentine Pavilion, designed this year by

3 Days of Design

Staff members came together for ‘A Muppets Christmas Carol’ winter party.

Our interior design team headed to Copenhagen for industry networking.

Office trip to Vienna

The practice visited Vienna to explore local architecture and culture.

Clerkenwell Design Week

The teams explore the vast exhibition dotted around EC1.

Winter Wonder Lights

Type: Installation

Location: Brixton, London

Status: Completed 2024

Squire & Partners’ Modelshop team collaborated with the Brixton Business Improvement District (BID) to give new life to previous Winter Windows designs - festive lights originally created by local school children and displayed each year in the windows of The Department Store, the practice’s Brixton headquarters. Over seven years, these imaginative designs became a much-loved local tradition. For this latest project, the team transformed the original concepts into a collection of bespoke lamppost lights. The smallerscale recreations were installed throughout Brixton, illuminating the town centre and celebrating the community’s creativity during the festive season.

Workshops

Ceremony

Victor Arunepunlop Irini Athanasiadou Ross Barnes Richard Barnes-Holt Maria Laura Barriola Ross Bateman

Cengiz Lizbeth Cervantes Sosa Maria Cheung Grace Chihane Jake Cortis James Daubeney Melanie Davies

Tim Gledstone Clementine Golding Olga Gomez James Gray Jenny Gray Michele Greco Raquel Gutierrez

Jeeves Anastasia Karaspiliou Adam Kerrod Jemma Kightley Borum Kim Megan King Briony Knowles Jae Jack Newey Michael Oliver-Jolley Alejandro Oostlander David O’Reilly Aikari Paing Michael Poots Connor Szlauer Ana Taho Julia Topley Isha Torne Florence Verdon Lucy Wilkinson Oliver Wolf Cindy Wong Yasmina

Arabella Bidgood Charlotte Blake Finbar Blumler Urbano Fabio Bonghi Bettina Brehler Rebecca Brook Pinar Molly Davies Kirsten Davis Leigh-Anne Defreitas Alicia Desmay Malcolm Ebose Charlotte Evans Clelia Filipe Emily Hacon Andri Hadjichristou Oliver Harvey Max Haynes Viktoria Hesse Steven Hill Shane Hood Tracy Kwak Marcie Larizadeh Murray Levinson Alessandro Mangiavacchi Emma Maple Beth Mills Anneli Moore Roberts Alessia Sarno Emily Sinclair George Squire Henry Squire Tess Stanford Valdone Svirskaite Karolina Yaghoubi Lara Zakhem Elena Zamora Castejon

Squire & Partners LLP

The Department Store

248 Ferndale Road, London SW9 8FR 020 7278 5555 info@squireandpartners.com squireandpartners.com