A New International Hub for PATRIZIA in London, UK

BGY helps bring out London heritage and hospitality to PATRIZIA‘s new international hub.

PATRIZIA, a leading partner for global real assets, has transformed the H Club members club in an historic building in Covent Garden, London, into an innovative hospitality-led workspace that will serve as its new international hub. 

The project, designed by architect Buckley Gray Yeoman and interior design studio BGY ID, involved the sustainable refurbishment of the Victorian building and its transformation into a 48,000 sq ft contemporary workplace to host 200 PATRIZIA employees. 

The deep brown-to-green refurbishment of the historic building, which lies within the Seven Dials Conservation Area, delivers a sustainable ‘office of the future’, combining smart building tech, wellness amenities, hospitality services, and flexible workspaces. 

The project included the addition of a new pavilion building and garden at roof level to provide a space for events and hospitality for PATRIZIA, as well as terraces on the other floors.

The new international hub, PATRIZIA’s largest global location outside of its Germany-based HQ, brings the investment manager’s real estate and infrastructure teams, as well as its technology arm, together under one roof to offer its global clients diverse investment solutions. This will drive greater collaboration and synergies between the different arms of the business, reflecting the increasingly integrated nature of real estate and infrastructure investment.

The new hub will play a central role in driving the future growth of the company’s global investment platform. The London team manages a significant portion of PATRIZIA’s €57 billion of global assets under management and leads many of its discretionary investment strategies.

As an investor in real estate for clients, the new workplace demonstrates PATRIZIA’s understanding of the office market and ambition for shaping the future of the sector.

Project Planning

PATRIZIA founder Wolfgang Egger and Simon Woolf, Chief Human Resources Officer worked closely with the project team to ensure the designs reflect PATRIZIA’s ‘NewWork’ concept that it has rolled out to four other office locations.

The design embodies PATRIZIA’s open, curious, creative and flexible culture, while respecting and showcasing the historic structure, building fabric, and original architectural features of the Victorian building.

Endell St provides a welcoming and vibrant hub for PATRIZIA’s employees and clients, exemplifying an innovative hospitality and ‘members club’ approach to workspace that reflects the heritage of the building.

The project delivers on PATRIZIA’s ambition to be a leader in the future of work, creating smart, sustainable workspaces that drive creativity and collaboration, inspiring people and allowing them to flourish.

Project Details

The Hospital Club, better known as the H Club, was founded by the Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and the musician Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics in 2004. The building has a rich history in the London creative industries and had a film and recording studio in its basement, with Radiohead recording their album In Rainbows there in 2007. 

The designers BGY ID have reused and repurposed a wide collection of accessories from the H Club in the new interior, including the original H Club chandelier, as well as around 200 other items, including chairs, desks, artwork, photographic prints, lighting and DJ desk and other accessories.

The reuse of items from the H Club has been balanced with a collection of new furniture, lighting, and accessories, selectively sourced and chosen to complement the existing spaces. These include a statement light hanging in the triple height atrium.

The project features art prominently throughout, reflecting Wolfgang Egger’s passion. This includes art and photographic prints from the H Club, as well as existing art pieces from PATRIZIA’s collection. Endell Street also features bespoke pieces by seven prominent street artists including Remi Rough, Ben Eine, Unify, Pref, MADC, Art + Believe and Soda.

The focus on street art reflects PATRIZIA’s support for the PAT Art Lab, a social enterprise promoting the impact of art in public spaces, through which PATRIZIA has provided spaces for urban artists to create work in cities around Europe, as well as inside PATRIZIA’s buildings.

The artworks also include paintings and photographic prints from the H Club, as well as existing art pieces from PATRIZIA’s collection. 

The film and recording studio, one of the largest in central London, has been retained as part of the development and will continue in the building.

Products 

Endell Street features bespoke art pieces by seven prominent street artists including Remi Rough, Ben Eine, Unify, Pref, MADC, Art + Believe and Soda.

Tech Solutions

Endell Street is a best in class digitally connected building with WiredScore Gold certification enabled by PATRIZIA’s smart building technology platform Ambio. 

The Ambio platform features: 

• app controlled smart lockers
• mobile access controls, meeting rooms and desk booking
• independent data layer to control heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC)
• light solutions with sensor data from air
• quality monitors and occupancy tracking

Overall Project Results

At Endell Street, PATRIZIA responded to the changing nature of work post pandemic by creating a workspace of the future that is not only a hospitable and attractive place for its employees to work, but fosters collaboration, drives creativity, inspires people and helps them flourish. 

The new international hub is an important pillar of PATRIZIA’s employer brand and articulates the company’s independent mindset, entrepreneurial spirit and passion for making an impact – and helping the business to retain and attract talent. 

As an innovative refurbishment of a beautiful historic building, Endell Street also exemplifies PATRIZIA’s value-add approach to office development and has sustainability at its heart. 

The design team wanted to celebrate the originality of the architectural features of the Victorian building, whilst sustainably transforming it into a trailblazing hospitality-driven working environment, delivering a space that reflects PATRIZIA’s firm belief that the best-in-class offices of the future will help build human connections and prioritise people’s right to a healthy and balanced life.

Importantly, the workspace also brings previously separate teams from PATRIZIA’s real estate and infrastructure businesses into one space together, in a flexible open-space environment, helping drive greater collaboration and synergies between the different arms of the business, reflecting the increasingly integrated nature of real estate and infrastructure investment. 

Sustainability Spotlight

The retention of the existing building has dramatically reduced the embodied carbon in the construction of the workspace, which is targeting net zero in operation, as well as BREEAM Excellent, EPC B and a WiredScore Gold certification. The enhanced sustainability credentials of the building were the highest that could be achieved due to its age. 

The project has also involved extensive reuse of materials from the existing building, including the brick work from the previous lobby, which has been used for brick slips in the new designs. 

Through the construction programme over 98% of on-site waste was recycled, while 50 trees have been planted locally to support the offsetting of residual embodied carbon. 

Ultimately, the aim was to ensure PATRIZIA’s new international hub would have a distinctive and authentic sense of character and identity, creating a welcoming workspace that fosters an open, optimistic, creative and courageous work culture, empowering people to live PATRIZIA’s values.

Contributors:

• Interior Designer: BGY ID
• Main contractor: Collins
• Planning consultant: Montagu Evans
• Structural engineer: HTS
• M&E consultant: GDM
• Quantity surveyor: Exigere 

Design

Lead Designer: Timothy Shepherd, BGY ID

Photography

Luca Piffaretti