Café Royal
Comprising of three Grade II listed buildings in the southern quadrant of Regent Street, just off Piccadilly Circus, the extensive refurbishment and re-modelling of the Café Royal has restored this famous landmark to its original glory.
The Crown Estate
Architect
David Chipperfield
Contractor
Mace
Quantity Surveyor
Gleeds
The brief required combining three separate structures, that met at a full building height lightwell, along with the construction of a pure bronze facade and shopfront scheme, that ran around the ground floor of the whole building.
Working directly with our client, The Crown Estate on this historic building project, we took the base design, developed and engineered it through to production of the finished project, ensuring the quality was synonymous with the rest of the building.
The central lightwell that was at the convergence of the three buildings was designed to spill natural light into the very heart of the building. This was achieved by capping off the top with a steel frame and conventional roof glazing system that allowed the light to transmit down. A totally bespoke steel frame was engineered to run full height within the lightwell and around its triangular sides. The bespoke design was fire-tested before being clad with pure bronze cappings from the internal side. Within the glazing apertures, a totally unique ‘copperlight’ glazing panel design was made up and tested before being installed, with sand-blasted glass to diffuse the light into the corridors, but mask the lightwell.
Another area of intricate design and complexity was the new entrance on Air Street. Five large existing stone arches were converted with the use of a totally bespoke, pure bronze design. Large curved reveal liners were designed and fabricated to run around the perimeter, with integral canopies also clad in pure bronze. Within the liners, a mixture of fixed glazing and doorsets were installed including a revolving doorset which also was clad in pure bronze.
Now a contemporary 5-star luxury hotel providing 160 guestrooms and suites in one of London’s prime locations, the restoration preserved the building’s rich heritage and balanced 21st century style with historic 1860’s and 1920’s building fabric, with many elements designed, supplied and installed by our team.
