Greenside 12 Blenheim Place, Edinburgh

In 2016 Chris Stewart Group (CSG) purchased a vacant, five storey office building at 12 Blenheim Place, Edinburgh. Once a high profile head office for an Edinburgh life assurance company, the building needed a complete transformation in order to successfully market it as a premium location for companies in the financial technology or “Fintec” sector.

Following the acquisition, we were quickly appointed as M&E consultants for the full refurbishment of this 1980’s building. The brief was defined early on and included two key challenges:

• To maximise the nett lettable area of the building
• For it to stand out in the Edinburgh office market.

TB+A assisted in meeting the first challenge of increasing the nett lettable area by replacing the building’s original VAV ventilation system with a minimum fresh air VRF heating / cooling system. The result was a significant size reduction of the level one plantroom and also ductwork riser sizes within the building. At level one a significant area was released back to nett lettable space as well as additional space on each level where risers were omitted. The lettable area was further increased by removing the original chillers and standby generator.

We overcame the second challenge by maximising the unique features of the building to create striking, contemporary internal spaces. Key to this was adopting a “de-furbished” approach with fully exposed services within the reception, tenants’ areas and central core. This has allowed the exposure of the “waffle” slab which gives a modern, quasi-industrial feel, which is popular office look in the “Fintec” and other technology-led sectors.

The landlord’s CAT A refurbishment parts of the project were completed in November 2017 enabling the first tenants to occupy on time. Our team in the Edinburgh office have a continued involvement with CSG at Greenside undertaking the design for the fit-out of the levels occupied by the “Fintec” company Nucleus.

This project has exceeded the original brief and was winner in the Refurbished / Recycled Workplace category at the BCO Awards 2018 - Scotland Region.