Retrofitting history: The Northcliffe by John Robertson Architects – ADC

John Robertson Architects (JRA) has retrofitted the former headquarters and print works of the Daily Mail newspaper on Tudor Street, close to Fleet Street in the City of London. Reincarnated as the Northcliffe, the project, originally designed by Ellis & Clarke in 1925, is one of the 1% of refurbished buildings to have attained BREEAM Outstanding, and exceeds RIBA’s 2030 embodied energy emissions targets.

The rehabilitation of the building, which hasn’t seen significant refurbishment since 2001, aims to deliver a future-proof asset that will ensure viability in a post-pandemic economy. JRA’s redesign incorporates the Grade II-listed façade of the original 1920s building and extends the top two floors to offer 186,700 sq ft of office space centred around a spectacular reimagined atrium. The Northcliffe offers extensive amenities, including three new landscaped roof terraces, lounge spaces, a library area, a quiet room, end-of-trip facilities, a café and a retail unit, all unified by references to the building’s post-industrial heritage.

The redesigned space can accommodate future tenants in the extended upper floors, which open onto landscaped terraces, increasing biodiversity on the site and encouraging tenants to enjoy outdoor breaks. All building users are allowed access to the terrace on Level 7. The original 1920s Grade II-listed façade has been retained, while an octagonal turret, designed by Ellis & Clarke as a later addition to the building in 1929, has been refurbished to provide a flexible and accessible new amenity space. The main entrance and hall have been repositioned and reconfigured to provide amenity spaces including break out areas, a library, a quiet room, and a café. A new retail unit provides scope for flexible uses and an active frontage onto Tudor Street.

The decision to preserve the superstructure and the existing façade contributed to embodied carbon reductions. Focusing on minimising carbon emissions, the practice adopted the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a sustainable approach. The retrofit includes air source heat pumps for simultaneous heating and cooling, improved insulation, new PV panels on the roof, and end-of-journey facilities including cycle storage, showers, and lockers.

“Our design approach has sought to preserve as much of the original structure as possible while referring to The Northcliffe’s historic use as a journalistic and publishing hub,” says Etain Fitzpatrick, Associate Director, JRA. “It also allows The Northcliffe to adapt to the requirements of the modern, post-pandemic, workforce.”

He goes on to explain the approach to working with the historic structure, a steel-clad frame encased in reconstituted stone and brickwork: “The relationship between the 1920s façade and the floorplates is immediately evident to occupiers. At a granular level, many of the Art Deco, neo-Egyptian architectural features of the original Northcliffe House have been subtly referenced in the geometric patterns and colour schemes used throughout the refurbished building. The adaptive reuse of buildings once used to produce newspapers is in JRA’s DNA. In the case of The Northcliffe, we have drawn upon our experience of transforming legacy assets to maximise floorplate potential, thereby addressing the rapidly changing requirements of the office market, while ensuring that key elements of the building’s original identity are retained.”