76-78 Portland Place

KJ Tait were appointed by The Howard de Walden Estate (HdWE) for the refurbishment of this Grade 2 listed building.  The 38,000ft² building comprises 3 zones: a 7 storey tower block constructed in the 1950’s, a town hall space with café and a rear 3 storey mews building.  The building provides 1,800m² of flexible workspace.

HdWE have entered into an agreement with Spacemade to operate the building which is targeted for Health Tech startup companies.

Our brief was to create an exemplar low energy building aligned with HdWE sustainability targets.  We carried out extensive energy modelling and created a low carbon pathway to enable the building to be zero carbon rated in the future, this mainly involved fabric improvement works.

KJ Tait were responsible for MEP and sustainability design.  The project was completed in March 2025.

The project comprised Cat B fit-out for Spacemade, the lead Tenant, this included:

• Catering
• AV & Sound Systems
• IT Services to suit Startup Health Tech Companies (including large scale screen and audio system in main hall)

There were a number of energy efficiency initiatives included in the design:

• PV panels on south facing roof area
• Automatic isolation of mechanical ventilation if suitable air quality is achieved by using the opening windows
• The use of heat recovery on all ventilation systems
• Occupancy control of air conditioning and lighting
• Maximise natural ventilation of main hall in lieu of mechanical ventilation
• Extensive electrical metering installation to enable consumption to be viewed and monitored remotely

The design of the building made full use of basement areas with new end of trip facilities with showers, a yoga studio and a wide range of meeting and conferencing facilities.

Our NABERS commission includes post completion monitoring.  This has enabled us to realise a number of energy savings which have been picked up when carrying out our NABERS Assessments.

Photographs by Jack Hobhouse