Princess Buildings is a collection of magnificent Victorian listed buildings that make up half an urban block in Halifax. The site was comprised of six buildings all with different floor plates that had been incrementally and crudely linked together in an ad hoc manner. Bauman Lyons were appointed by Calderdale Council and tasked with rationalising the existing disjointed cellular spaces and to improve access and circulation.
Highlights
- We proposed the wholesale removal of the rear of several of the buildings, in order to create a new naturally ventilated circulation core. This allowed us to fit in 20% more desks than the original brief, 3 times the meeting space area than we were asked for and to improve the buildings accessibility from under 45% to over 95%.
- The scheme strongly links to its context by framing views to local landmarks with a series of large openings that help tie the building together which in turn helps orientate visitors within the town.
- Along the town’s principal street we demolished an insensitive 1970s office building and extended the main facade at an appropriate, contextual scale.