Hallelujah Project, Westminster

2025 RIBA London Award 
Conservation Award sponsored by VELUX

Culture & entertainment
Peregrine Bryant Architects for Handel Hendrix House
Contract value: Confidential
GIA: 830m²

The first occupant of 23–25 Brook Street was renowned composer George Frideric Handel. The Grade I-listed Handel House has been creatively adapted to provide it with a sustainable long-term future, celebrating its associations with not just Handel but also Jimi Hendrix, who lived in the top floor flat of no.23 in the late 1960s. 

This exemplary conservation project reinstates the plan form of the original house following forensic research to understand and identify the original fabric so as to reverse some of the subsequent alterations. Time and care were taken to unpick these unsympathetic layers to restore its original street frontage, replacing a later shopfront with a domestic brick one and reopening the basement area. The layout of Handel’s lower-ground-floor kitchen has been reinstated as it was 300 years ago.

Where required, the team sourced reclaimed flagstones and timbers from similarly aged buildings, ensuring that the provenance was recorded on the underside of the element before relaying. The client team placed very significant weight on ensuring that the entry point was repositioned from where it had been at the rear of the property to the street front, to facilitate wheelchair users' enjoyment of the house. 

Peregrine Bryant Architects incorporated access and catering facilities respectfully, with much consideration given to space for school parties, concerts, corporate functions and group dining, allowing the house income-generating opportunities to sustain its future.  

The client employed an intelligent approach to sustainability. Despite the buildings being Grade I listed, the design team have delivered mechanical, electrical and plumbing solutions that have proved more economic in operational use than was predicted. 

Plant equipment has been painstakingly routed through the existing fabric, concealed underneath floorboards and in nooks. External fabric has been sensitively upgraded through window replacement and insulation being inserted behind historical panelling.

This project is impressive in so many ways, with the team securing the future of a cultural gem that was previously lost, having been altered beyond recognition. In restoring the  fabric they have also recovered the enjoyment of current and future generations of music lovers. 

Through the sensitive and intelligent restoration and interpretation of this building, Handel’s and Hendrix’s stories are more accessible – both intellectually and physically – than ever before.

See the rest of the RIBA London winners here. And all the RIBA Regional Awards here.

To see the whole RIBA Awards process visit architecture.com.

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