This whole-apartment refurbishment sits within a listed red brick mansion block on the Hans Estate, in the Hans Town Conservation Area — one of the most tightly controlled heritage settings in London. The building also falls within the Higher-Risk Building regime under the Building Safety Act, placing building control with the Building Safety Regulator rather than the borough. Three consenting routes therefore ran in parallel: Listed Building Consent, the freeholder's licence to alter, and Building Safety Act approval.

The brief called for contemporary comfort with no visible compromise to a period interior. The internal layout was remodelled to improve circulation and the relationship between the principal rooms, and a full comfort-cooling system specified that leaves nothing on show but a flush grille painted to match the plaster. Concealed floor-standing units were recessed into new stud construction — including a stacked pair serving two adjacent rooms from a single 270mm wall — with structural blocking, acoustic separation, condensate routing and fire-stopping resolved on drawing before the walls closed. Penetrations into historic fabric were kept minimal, discreet and, wherever possible, reversible.

The result reads as an unaltered period apartment. The engineering is simply not visible.

More photos coming soon.