The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
Councillors on the borough’s planning major applications sub-committee last night (23 November) voted by five to one to support a redevelopment which will see a 10-storey mixed-use building replace M&S’s largest store, which currently occupies three buildings at 456-472 Oxford Street.
M&S will occupy just two and a half floors of the new building, rather than the five currently used – with office space taking up the upper floors.
The decision comes despite a last-minute listing bid and a range of voices calling for the existing building complex to be preserved – in particular, the 1930s Orchard House – due to its cultural heritage and the embodied carbon associated with demolition and rebuild.
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However, the government confirmed this morning (24 November) that it will not list Orchard House, following advice given by Historic England. The heritage agency said the building ‘is not regarded as innovative nor of sufficient architectural quality’ to merit protection, especially given the ‘considerable loss of original fabric’.
SAVE Britain’s Heritage director Henrietta Billing said demolishing the ‘handsome building of landmark status’ would be ‘massively short sighted and wasteful’.
She added: ‘Orchard House is a refined and sophisticated example of its kind.It [has] high historic and architectural significance’.
The Twentieth Century Society described the building’s ‘restrained classicism’ as a ‘thoughtful’ response to the neighbouring Grade II*-listed Selfridges building in its application to Historic England to list the building. Its president, Catherine Slessor, also described Pilbrow’s proposed replacement on social media as an ‘anodyne hulk’.
Create Streets, which was founded by Nicholas Boys Smith, head of the non-departmental Office for Place agency, also said on Twitter that Pilbrow & Partners’ new block was ‘ugly spreadsheet architecture,’ a ‘waste of embodied carbon’ and ‘barely bigger’ than the existing building.
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And Jacob Loftus, chief executive of developer General Projects, asked on Twitter ‘how can this be justified in the context of a climate emergency?,’ adding that his company ‘would be happy to refurbish and extend’ the building – something which he said would ‘cost less and be more profitable too’.
How can this be justified in the context of a climate emergency?
Geoff Barraclough, the one councillor who voted against the scheme, told fellow committee members: ‘There is merit in Orchard House, particularly the way it sits with Selfridges, to be reflective or subservient to it. The new building is the reverse: its overbearing and overshadows Selfridges, and its very large.
‘[There will be] 39,500 tonnes of carbon in the building of this new construction. Its great that there is some urban greening on it but, according to the applicant’s own report, those 39,500 tonnes of carbon would require 2.4 million trees to offset. You can’t get 2.4 million trees on top of the new building.
‘Just to put that 39,500 tonnes of carbon in context, last week the council announced that we are going to spend £17 million to retrofit all of our building to save 1,700 tonnes of carbon every year. And so this is 23 years of what we have just saved as a council, going into one building.’
However, planning officers at Westminster Council had recommended the Pilbrow scheme for approval, saying that the loss of Orchard House was ‘fully justified in design and heritage terms’. A planning report added that the new building ‘is considered to be well resolved and of visual interest that is appropriate to its historic context’.
The report also said the scheme would see ‘significant improvements to the public realm’ and is ‘highly sustainable’ as it includes ‘significant urban greening, meaningful outdoor terraces and maximises on site renewable energy’.
And it added that the scheme would contribute towards economic growth, not only through creation of jobs during construction, but also by ‘supporting the sustainable recovery of Oxford Street as a leading retail destination’.
£1.2 million will be paid to offset the carbon generated
As part of the Section 106 contributions made by M&S for the scheme, it the chain will pay a £1.2 million payment towards offsetting the carbon generated by the redevelopment.
Fred Pilbrow of Pilbrow & Partners argues (see below) that, though the practice had ‘looked carefully at the potential refurbishment of the three separate buildings on the site, unfortunately their configuration precluded delivering the quality of retail space required by M&S’.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan will now consider whether to intervene on the planning application, or whether to let Westminster’s decision stand.
Sacha Berendji, M&S’s group property, store development and IT director said: ‘M&S has a long history in Marble Arch, and so we are pleased to receive approval for redevelopment.
‘This means we will be able to serve the communities of the west end of Oxford Street from a modernised store offering the best of our products and services, and establish a building which positively contributes to our net zero targets over the long term with strong sustainability credentials, which is another step forward in the transformation of our store estate to be fit for the future.’
Robert Rigby, chairman of planning at Westminster City Council, said: ‘Our committee must make decisions in line with planning policy and this development meets those policies.
‘We acknowledge the concerns that have been raised by those who opposed this scheme but the committee felt reassured that the proposed building remains in keeping with the surrounding area and its heritage and will add new life to this part of Oxford Street.
‘We all want Oxford Street to thrive. The council is committed to transforming the area and securing the future of the nation’s high street and the new M&S building will play an important role in ensuing Oxford Street remains a vibrant and key commercial street within the borough.’
Architect's view
We looked carefully at the potential refurbishment of the three separate buildings on the site, unfortunately their configuration precluded delivering the quality of retail space required by M&S.
Equally importantly, their retention precluded the positive transformation of the public realm sought by Westminster as part of their Oxford Street District Strategy.
These three existing buildings are unlisted and their modest architectural quality is reflected by the site’s exclusion from the surrounding Conservation Areas. Orchard House, dating from the 1930s has been extensively altered and many of its original features lost. Orchard Street was widened in the 1970s and as an unfortunate consequence the pavement was driven into the ground floor of the building. The legacy is a dark and oppressive pedestrian tunnel which was extended along Orchard Street by the low quality extension constructed at the same time.
M&S originally occupied only the ground floor of this building. Its organic growth into the upper floors of Orchard House and then laterally into the Orchard Street extension and finally Neale House – a 1980s brick building to the west on Oxford Street – has resulted in a retail environment with dense structure, misaligned floors and low ceiling heights (level 3 : 2.38m). M&S are currently trading across five retail levels which is inefficient and results in reduced footfall on the upper floors.
Our proposals will create generous open floors with M&S retaining a full line offer on ground, lower ground and first floor level.
The site today has a poor frontage on Orchard Street and things get worse as you go to the rear, where Granville Place is a service dominated and bleak environment. Here the existing building presents three storeys of windowless brick facade, louvres and loading bay.
Westminster City Council have recognised the need for significant investment and regeneration on Oxford Street if it is to remain a successful retail centre in the face of unprecedented technological change (not to mention the pandemic). Their Oxford Street District Strategy recognises the contribution high quality public realm plays in Oxford Street’s success. They reference the synergy between busy Oxford Street itself and the quieter side streets where, like St Christopher’s Place, you can stop and have lunch or a coffee.
Our scheme reconceives Granville Place as an attractive pedestrian destination – a St Christopher’s Place West. We create a new east-west link between Orchard Street and Granville Place with a new public arcade and offer further permeability north-south through the new M&S unit. Both routes converge on a garden animated by a café.
M&S as our client take environmental responsibility extremely seriously and they have tasked us to deliver a leading edge project aspiring to the highest standards of sustainability and wellbeing. The offices on the upper floors of the building will target BREEAM Outstanding and WELL Platinum - one of a very select group of buildings that aim to meet both these criteria. The design is engineered to target ambitious operational energy consumption targets below 55kwh/m2/per year and embodied carbon below 500kg carbon/m2. Both targets aligned to the London Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI) guidance for commercial offices and we are following the UK Green Building Council’s framework to achieve a net zero carbon building.
In addition, the project delivers enhanced biodiversity in line with the Wild West End Framework. We are targeting innovation credits within the BREEAM Assessment with the introduction of
external and internal green walls and generous garden terraces.
The proposals have been favourably reviewed in pre-application discussions with Westminster City Council and the GLA.
Fred Pilbrow, founder partner, Pilbrow & Partners
View of existing site:
Project data
Location 458 Oxford Street, London
Local authority Westminster City Council
Type of project mixed-use, retail and office
Client Marks and Spencer Plc
Architect Pilbrow & Partners
Landscape architect Gillespies
Planning consultant DP9
Structural engineer Arup
M&E consultant Arup
Project manager Gardiner & Theobald
Quantity surveyor Gardiner & Theobald
CDM adviser Peter Waxman CDM
Lighting consultant Pritchard Themis
Unfortunately, it seems pointless to proffer the embodied carbon card to block this scheme for the Marks & Spencer site in Oxford Street: the huge money-generating potential of a newbuild scheme would probably overwhelm that argument, and also any attempt to justify the value of the current building’s architecture. But how on earth did Pilbrow’s late-stage design of the new buildings get even this far? The practice appears to have noted the skilled homage to the Chilehaus in the City by Parry, and the equally adroit inflections of Lynch’s mixed-use tableau in Victoria Street, and then baked them into a monumental, sub-Morettian mass whose scrunched verticals seem to accentuate an aura of sombre muteness. Where’s the joy? Where is the beautifully detailed materiality? What, as Our Incomparable Leader might say, would Peppa the Pig think of it? Mr Pilbrow refers to the “modest architectural quality” of the existing buildings. But is there not something immodestly crude about the architecture of the replacing scheme that he proposes, and especially in the way it presents itself to Oxford Street? The site is obviously challenging and any new scheme (by any architect) would obviously address the misaligned levels and greatly improve porosity and the public realm. Mr Pilbrow’s scheme does respond to these two challenges. But, as a whole, doesn’t this big, high value corner site deserve genuinely exceptional architecture? Jay Merrick
Which Parry is a Chilehaus homage?