Project Overview
Axtell House is a 1920s-built, Art Deco style office building in London’s Soho, located a stone’s throw from Regent Street and the busy commercial area around Carnaby Street.
The building was in need of some updating leading to a project designed by award winning architects, Darling Associates, to remodel the interiors, update the façade and create additional space with a rooftop extension, while maintaining the distinctive Art Deco aesthetics.
The resulting project, delivered by RED Construction, has seen the building transformed with stylish new interiors and replacement of mid-20th century additions with three new storeys at roof level. These have been visually connected to the existing building with the use of SureClad® Engineered Stone panels featuring decorative CNC detailing.
Design Requirements
The additional storeys needed to create impact and give the building a modern twist while complementing the existing façades: the choice of SureClad® Engineered Stone was critical in delivering these aims.
The design intent was to connect the newly constructed storeys to the existing building with a synergy of architectural form by using engineered stone that complements the Portland Stone of the original building in colour and texture. Shackerley was able to finish the panels in-house with CNC engraving to create vertical linear fluting that replicates classical stone detailing.
The use of SureClad® Engineered Stone meant that the façade for the new extension could reference the original stone elevations while remaining within the structural loading parameters needed to avoid any strengthening of the core building.
SureClad® Engineered Stone also provided A2 classified fire safety in accordance with BS-EN 13501-1
Material Used
The SureClad® Engineered Stone ventilated façade system was specified in a creamy-beige colourway, similar to Portland Stone, with a textured, sand-blasted finish.
All façade elements were custom-manufactured at the ISO9001 accredited Shackerley production plant in Lancashire, including CNC engraving of 30mm thick SureClad® Engineered Stone panels with linear fluting. Each groove was precision-cut to create a channel 35mm wide and 15mm deep, creating total uniformity for the decorative finish, which is clearly visible from street level.
In total, more than 100 different types of panel and detail were specified, including panels of varying sizes, with the largest panels used measuring 1732mm x 925mm.
The panels were installed using Shackerley’s SureClad® ‘Hang On’ system.
