Located behind London’s iconic Piccadilly Lights, Landsec’s major redevelopment and extension known as ‘Lucent’ is now complete, offering 144,000 sq ft of high-quality office, hospitality, retail and residential units.
With the commercial space behind the lights previously empty since the 1950s, the building required an extensive annual maintenance regime. To help unlock the site’s potential, Landsec worked with Fletcher Priest Architects to design a striking eight-storey ‘island of serenity’ which has seen the revamped facility become as unique as its surroundings.
With wellbeing at Lucent’s heart, 20 landscaped terraces and an internal wintergarden featuring a three-storey living wall offer a wide range of collaboration and breakout spaces. The dynamic, open floor plates are designed around a central open-air atrium that unites the floors, flooding every storey with natural light, whilst a roof-top terrace and restaurant offer exceptional views across London. This focus on amenity space provision and optimising user experiences resulted in Lucent achieving a WELL ‘Gold’ rating.
In a recent statement, Marcus Geddes, Managing Director for Workplace at Landsec said: “Access to amenity is fast becoming one of the biggest drivers in leasing decisions, with businesses looking for spaces that can attract and retain the best talent. The combination of office space, retail and unparalleled restaurants and leisure on site make Lucent a new destination in its own right.”
Following our engineering input for 2017’s Piccadilly Lights renovation, Waterman’s structures team returned for this latest scheme. Our retrofit specialists collaborated with Landsec and Fletcher Priest Architects to help deliver their vision and maximise the existing structure’s potential. To facilitate the feature open atrium and additional storeys, we made key design interventions to the basement and superstructure, including a new roof truss spanning 36m across the existing buildings, carrying the three new floors above.
Driving down the building’s embodied carbon footprint was a major project goal, seeing as much of the existing building fabric retained as possible, whilst key new materials such as steelwork and concrete incorporate a high level of recycled content. Lucent is targeting BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ and NABERS 4.5-star ratings.
Working in this bustling location with live commercial premises at ground level, main contractor Wates ensured the building’s transformation took place without closing the existing retail outlets at Piccadilly or effecting the advertising lights.
Andrew Sherlock, Waterman’s Director for Structures, commented: “We are extremely proud to have been part of the team delivering this exceptional sustainability-focused scheme. This was a unique opportunity for the design team to help shape the future of one of the UK’s most famous landmarks, creating a vibrant new facility which will provide a contrasting sanctuary to the bustling streets of Piccadilly Circus.”
On Friday 10 November, we proudly celebrated a significant moment where Landsec had taken over the Piccadilly lights for a video display to thank the entire project team whilst marking a decade of shared success in shaping and developing Lucent.
