King's Toft, York – Serviced Apartments

The site for this project forms part of a wider collection of buildings within York’s Historic Core Conservation Area which has been owned by an old-established family company for several generations. A redundant 1960’s garage and an underused former warehouse abutting a number of Listed and otherwise historically significant buildings, posing significant design and construction challenges.

 

The client brief was for a mix of serviced apartments and commercial floorspace together with various associated alterations and repairs to various structures.

 

Many design iterations were produced and considered by the stakeholders, with Conservation considerations being a particular constraint. Care was taken at all stages to provide good daylighting, privacy, acoustic conditions and sustainability performance. 

 

The final design solution involved repairing, reinforcing and converting the existing warehouse structure and extending it upwards. The 1960’s garage on the adjacent site was demolished and replaced with a sensitively-designed newbuild block which shares vertical circulation with the converted warehouse. A key challenge was resolving the heritage requirements with the need for high thermal performance whilst satisfying budgetary constraints.

 

Despite very detailed survey work, demolition work revealed further challenges, particularly with the existing structure and various adjustments to the design needed to be made whilst construction was progressing. It is a credit to the whole team that the resulting building complex is both functional and beautiful