The Standard Hotel
The conversion of Camden Town Hall Annex building into a new 266 bedroom boutique hotel with two new floors at roof level.
The addition of two new floors at roof level has enabled the creation of a feature restaurant accessed from street level by an external scenic lift.
Whilst more traditionally, there is a restaurant and bar open to the general public at ground floor level. The hotel officially opened in Autumn 2019 and you may well have read press articles in the Metro and Evening Standard heralding its arrival.
Key points
Levels 1 – 9 guest bedrooms, some with private terraces with outside baths
Level 10 restaurant and bar with panoramic views of the London skyline
Designed to achieve a BREEAM status of “Very Good”
External lift connects to the hotels 10th floor bar and restaurant
266 guest bedrooms
Boutique Hotel
Crosstree Real Estate Partners
Project Challenges and Characteristics
What was once Camden Town hall and its Annex is located on the edge of Camden Council boundary; opposite St. Pancras Station. If you have exited the station you would have seen the red “pod” lift car on the outside of the building providing direct access to the tenth floor themed restaurant and bar.
The adoption of the existing frame, façade and the addition of new floors did present a number of challenges. The ultimate goal being to provide a 266 bedroom hotel that would provide a comfortable environment for occupants, customers and staff and that could be fully serviced, maintained and repaired when necessary.
We were fortunate to have been introduced to the operator team from The Standard Hotel early in the construction process. This did strengthen Burgess’ position when maintainability aspects were discussed and resolved with the constructors and design teams. Whilst there were a number of project challenges the following can be considered as our most problematic and have since been added to our lessons learned schedules;
Sectional hand-overs and beneficial occupation
Project construction programmes are a dynamic project tool and whilst sectional handovers can be integrated into these programmes, the net affect on the services must be considered. In effect, “have the services been designed to allow sectional handover/completion and what measures need to be put in place to successfully commission systems?”
- The ability to successfully commission a smoke control system serving an entire building will be affected by incomplete floors and areas, such that temporary systems will be required.
- Sectional handovers will require repeated life safety systems testing which should be considered at design stage and must be incorporated in commissioning and handover programmes.
- It may not be possible to fully commission centralised plant including the building management system (BMS) until all services and finishes are in place.
- The design of potable water systems just recognise sectional completions, reducing the requirement to undertake repeated pipework sterilisation processes.
The above items were all overcome with careful planning and dogged resolve and the hotel officially opened in the Autumn 2019.
Any questions?
For more information about the The Standard Hotel project, or to discuss any of our services available, please contact us.
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