1 Victoria Street

Immediately next to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey - One Victoria Street is the redevelopment of the former headquarters of the UK Government Department for Business & Trade. The new building will reinvent the inward-looking and fortress-like 1960s building to achieve the highest sustainability levels, improve the health and wellbeing of building users and reinvigorate the tired streetscape, with high quality retail and leisure accommodation. The site occupies a whole city block set within the historic context of the City of Westminster. It is bounded to the north by Victoria Street which links the busy retail and office areas around London Victoria Station to the tourist hot spots of Parliament Square, Westminster Abbey, and the Palace of Westminster. Abbey Orchard Street, to the south, is more residential in character with narrow streets lined with brick mansion blocks. One Victoria Street is designed to be a respectful neighbour to the World Heritage Site, while at the same time revitalising the east end of Victoria Street with an active ground plane providing access to a vibrant mix of uses retail, leisure, and entertainment space and 385,000 sq ft of high-quality office space. The stepped form of the proposed building responds to the need to preserve key historic views towards Westminster Abbey and the World Heritage Site, maintain the quality of daylight to residential neighbours, and to provide a variety of external amenity spaces with a mix of soft and hard landscaping at every level. Facade materials complement the sensitive historic context. The north facing elevations are clad with Portland Stone in a brick module making use of waste material from the quarrying process. A London stock brick is used to tie into the more residential character of the area to the south of the site. The top floors are clad in a darker stone relate to the roofscapes seen from the World Heritage Site. The stone and brick are supported by an innovative Ultra High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete (UHPFRC) modular frame. This material has been used to minimise weight and embodied carbon. After extensive studies, the superstructure was found to be unsuitable for retention, however the new building will make use of the existing basement which results in 52% of the total existing structure retained (by volume). The proposed new structure is as lean as possible to minimise embodied carbon. Operational carbon will be minimised through low carbon MEP solutions, and new high performing facades which change in depth and proportion of glazing in response to orientation. Urban greening through landscape and planting around the ground floor, and a series of cascading terraces at upper levels for the use of office occupants. Circular economy principles have been adopted to divert all waste from landfill including: - 120 tonnes of glass recovered and re-manufactured as high-quality glass. - 92,000 raised access floor tiles and 50,400 carpet tiles recovered for reuse. - Fittings and furniture from the existing building donated to local community groups/charities.