Pilbrow and Partners discusses the Kensington Building at our 'Retrofit and renewal' forum this week

Above: the Kensington Building on the corner of Kensington High Street and Wright's Lane (courtesy Pilbrow & Partners

How can architects approach and remodel tired buildings from the 1970s to create exemplars of modern sustainability for commercial workspace and retail?

At our 'Retrofit and Renewal' forum, Fred Pilbrow, Founder of Pilbrow & Partners, will be discussing the Kensington Building, a project that involved an upgrading and remodelling a former department store site in London W8.

The practice's completed project for Ashby Capital, remodelled the bleak 1970s building on the corner of Wrights Lane and Kensington High Street, in order to transform the quality of its architecture, public realm and internal working environment. The re-modelling was carried out while the Boots store at street level continued to trade.

The practice described the challenge:

'The project improved connectivity to Kensington High Street Underground station through the creation of a new retail arcade, linking to Wrights Lane.

'The existing building was a purpose-built department store built in the 1970s but occupied principally with offices. The retail was poorly configured and routes to the adjacent Kensington High Street Underground Station were informal through the ground floor Boots unit.

'It was recognised as being of low architectural quality and its large, blank ground floor frontages detracting from the public realm along Wrights Lane. The orthogonal planning of the existing building broke the alignment of the historic street wall, leaving awkward residual spaces on this frontage.

'The proposals restored the definition of the urban block with new facades of Roman brick and Portland Stone. The building scale along this frontage is now modulated as a series of bays – a remediation of the relentless mass of the existing building and a restoration of its civic nature.'

Fred Pilbrow will join Salisbury Cathedral, the London School of Economics and the City of London Corporation, among other contributors for this timely debate.