The part of the building everyone can see
Most of our London work is on buildings that are already standing, in streets that stay open while we work. The facade is where that is hardest. It is usually listed or in a conservation area, it is the part the local authority and the neighbours look at, and it has to be made sound and weathertight again without taking the building out of use.
What we carry out
- Stone, stucco and render restoration — cornices, pediments, porticos, balustrades, rusticated plinths and window surrounds, cut out and reinstated to the original profile.
- Brickwork — rebuilding, stitching and toothing into existing, with bond and mortar matched and approved by sample before laying.
- Windows and doors — timber and aluminium, measured after the structural openings are formed, then fabricated and fitted.
- Structural openings in load-bearing elevations — needling, propping and temporary support designed with the structural engineer before anything is cut.
- External sealing, flashings and weathering details.
- Access — scaffold, or rope access where scaffold is refused or impractical.
Three recent examples
57 Cromwell Road, South Kensington
External restoration to a stucco-fronted building on a main road, in use throughout. The dentil cornice had eroded, render was spalling off the balustrade and the stucco was cracked across the window heads. We worked from scaffold, cut out the failed material, reinstated the cornice, balustrade, portico and window surrounds to profile and redecorated the elevation. The before and after photographs are on the project page.
90 Queensway, Bayswater
Mixed-use refurbishment with substantial work to the elevations. New openings formed in load-bearing brickwork with needling and propping to the structural engineer’s design; a new rear elevation and first-floor build; Flemish bond brickwork matched and approved by sample; and timber windows and doors to both the new openings and the existing front elevation, measured in two batches so the front openings were only taken off once levels were fixed on site.
18 Hans Crescent, Knightsbridge
A duplex over the third and fourth floors of a Knightsbridge mansion block, taken back and rebuilt. The facade element was the windows: replaced to the elevation of a building in a conservation area, at height, under the landlord’s licence to alter and with the block occupied throughout. Access, protection to the common parts, lift and delivery bookings and working hours were agreed with the freeholder and the managing agent, and the other residents kept their entrance for the duration. Internally the job ran to a smart home installation, bespoke floating stairs between the two floors and fitted joinery throughout — see the project page.
How we work on an occupied elevation
The method matters as much as the finish. Before anything is cut we agree the access, the protection, the working hours and the route for materials and waste with the freeholder, the managing agent or the local authority, as the building requires. Temporary works are designed, not improvised. Where a profile is being reinstated we take a mould or a sample from the original and get it approved before we run it, because matching an existing elevation is the whole job.
Engineered facades
Where a facade needs engineered design — structural glazing, unitised or rainscreen systems — we carry it as principal contractor with a specialist design practice under our control, and design responsibility is set out in writing before anything is ordered. It is the same model we use for structural and services design on design-and-build contracts.
Roofs, rooflights and rainwater goods
A leaking industrial roof is rarely one hole. On a rooflight maintenance contract for Impact Modular we sealed 54 leaking rooflights with a liquid waterproof coating, replaced the rusted fixing brackets, laid new EPDM to every rooflight, patched the holes in the metal roof cladding, and overhauled the central valley gutter and the hoppers around the roof.
See it built
57 Cromwell Road — stucco, cornice, portico and balustrades repaired and reinstated, with the before and after photographs on the page. 18 Hans Crescent — window replacement at height on a Knightsbridge elevation.
Tell us about your project — send the drawings, or just the address if there are none yet, and we will come and look.
