Louise House

Located within the City of Westminster, Louise House lies between a number of popular tourist destinations and local landmarks including the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Tate Britain and Westminster Cathedral.

Studio Moren’s brief has been to refurbish and combine two 1930’s buildings on a corner site in Westminster to extend their useful lives and revitalise the local community for future generations.

Historically known as St Louise House, former occupants of the buildings included the Daughters of Charity, who wore distinct headwear as part of their habit, known as a 'cornette'.

The memorable sculptured effect created by the folded, starched cornette became the design inspiration for the dramatic roofscape extension proposal.

This project is designed to be a positive asset, benefiting the neighbours, community and local townscape. To meet this aim, a comprehensive sustainable approach to refurbishment and design energy performance are being developed for this central London site.

The starting point for this proposal is the retention, restoration and re-use of the existing building, which reduces embodied carbon emissions stored in the building throughout its construction history from being released through demolition and decomposition in landfill.

While the majority of the existing building is retained, a sensitive rear extension and “cornette” roof extension are proposed to increase building capacity without harming the setting of adjacent conservation areas and key views to The Victoria Tower of the Palace of Westminster.

The thermal performance of the existing building fabric will be enhanced by accommodating extra insultation. In addition to passive building performance improvements, the proposed services strategy is based on the extensive use of heat pump technologies, including a ground source heat pump with geothermal boreholes to heat water for building use, water source heat pumps for space heating and cooling, and decentralised ventilation with heat recovery to reduce the amount of air that needs to be heated or cooled anew.

Improvements to noise and air pollution are also being introduced by removing the need for a conventional diesel life safety generator and specifying an innovative battery-based system located within the building footprint.

Additionally, biodiverse green roofs combined with rainwater-attenuating blue roofs and PV panels are proposed for biodiversity net gain on the site, implementing a sustainable drainage strategy and generating on-site renewable energy. These measures significantly reduce the amount of energy typically required to operate the building, which reduces operational carbon emissions over its lifetime.

Within the rooms, water-efficient fittings and fixtures will contribute to an overall reduced consumption, which, together with the monitoring of energy usage, will increase the sustainability of the accommodation.

Client: SAV Group
Location: London, United Kingdom
Status: Submitted for planning 2023
Uses: Mixed use, student accomodation, extended stay