8 Bleeding Heart Yard, Farringdon

2025 RIBA National Award

2025 RIBA London Award 

8 Bleeding Heart Yard, Islington, London
Groupwork for Seaforth Land Holdings
Contract value: Confidential
GIA: 3,386m²

8 Bleeding Heart Yard offers a new way of thinking about deep retrofit in the office sector and, in doing so, breathes new life (but with more than a mere nod to the past) into this address within the Farringdon Conservation Area. The project represents the importance of the collaboration between the structural engineer and the architect, Groupwork, at a very strategic design level: their investigations and combined creativity in demonstrating that the structure and façades could take additional loads were fundamental.

The 1970s flush-fronted ribbon-windowed office that stood most recently on the site was a background building with little to commend it, but with a structure that clearly had more to give. The project’s starting point was to retain the ‘pot-and-beam’ floor slab – composed of concrete beams with hollow terracotta infill – and the concrete columns. Additional accommodation was inserted on top and in the courtyard, extending fully to the plot’s ‘red line’ boundary to get maximum value out of the land. Where some projects might have stopped there, this one also sought to reuse the masonry infill on the facades, to provide the necessary support for the cladding and remove the need for further cost, time and carbon to be expended on demolition and its replacement.

The two additional storeys are cross-laminated timber (CLT), creating a different character of office space compared to the refurbished floors. The lower weight of this material, when compared to steel or concrete solutions, was accommodated without underpinning. This was significant in minimising the project’s embodied carbon, as well as helping to reduce construction time. Photovoltaic panels, high levels of insulation and airtightness and an air-source heat pump all contribute to impressively low in-use energy credentials.

Forensically studying archival evidence of the predecessor buildings that had once occupied the site – a range of Victorian shops and houses – the architect sought to recreate the historical roofline and facade arrangement. This it achieved by effectively applying a new shroud, which replays the past, on top of the 1970s shell. The shroud is of 3mm-thick perforated recycled metal, which gives the illusion of heavy solidity when viewed obliquely and from a distance. On approach, it still defies definition, until, finally, light can be seen to penetrate it and the veil reveals itself for what it is. Where the 1970s facade was flat and lifeless, the new interpretation is heavily modelled and striking – and entirely unrecognisable from its 1970s origins.

The project team single-mindedly pursued the idea of intensifying use, reusing both structure and skin, and keeping embodied carbon and running costs to a minimum. The result offers a blueprint for how office buildings can be redeveloped, and translates well, adding to the richness of the varied architecture along this street.

See the rest of the 2025 RIBA London winners here. And all our RIBA UK Award winners here.

View the full RIBA UK Awards 2025 process.

 

RIBA Regional Awards 2025 sponsored by Autodesk, EH Smith, Equitone and Velux