Piercy & Company gets planning consent to demolish former AJ office

Hackney Council gave the go-ahead to the 30,000m² office-led scheme for developer Brockton Everlast and Quoinstone Investment Management last week (25 July) following several design tweaks.

In the revised plans, office space proposed for the ninth floor of the development was removed and the 8th floor was reduced by 40 per cent in size in response to feedback from councillors, the practice says.

Other amendments to the proposals first unveiled in November 2021 include a reorientation of the entrance on Leonard Circus and refinement of façades to better respond to the local context, as well as emphasised corner blocks.

Piercy & Company says set-backs on the south-west of the floorplan will create a lower roofline when viewed from the west, in comparison with the earlier proposals.

Previous designs would have seen a 10-storey replacement for the 1960s office block near Old Street roundabout, which was previously home to the Shoreditch offices of AJ parent company emap, as well as CF Møller Architects.

Piercy & Company’s approved proposals will instead see a nine-storey build replace the seven-storey office block in Paul Street, which will be demolished. EPR Architects reclad the current structure in 2007.

Developers said in planning documents that a study was undertaken ‘to seek to retain large elements of the existing building’s structure’, leading to 18 per cent of the volume being kept.

Justifying the proposed demolition in 2021, Piercy & Company director Pete Jennings said the decision had ‘not been taken lightly’ and that a new block would result in an ‘exciting and sustainable future for the site’ (see full statement below).

Piercy & Company is a signatory to Architects Declare, while the AJ’s RetroFirst campaign has sought to make retrofitting existing buildings the default choice of developers in the face of the climate emergency, since 2019.

An environmental impact assessment screening option lodged with Hackney Council for the scheme stated: ‘The proposals are for the redevelopment of the site to replace the poor-quality, office-use building that is set-back from the street behind a perimeter fence with a high-quality building that will activate all three street frontages and provide multiple functions, including co-working, retail, roof terraces and central gallery atrium.’

Planning officers also cited the development's restoration of the street character through the creation of active frontages.

Work on the replacement building will begin later this year.