Commercial
West End addition
Situated on Jermyn Street, the eightstorey
32 Duke Street St James’s
forms part of the much wider St
James’s redevelopment, a major
10-year investment programme that will
revitalise the renowned central London
area with a new public square, offices, retail
outlets and high quality residences.
The flagship project of this multimillion
pound vision is the nearby St
James’s Market scheme see NSC January
2015, just south of Piccadilly Circus, that
delivered 24,100m² of commercial and
retail space across two eight-storey blocks
situated between two of London’s most
prestigious thoroughfares, Regent Street
and Haymarket.
No less prestigious, 32 Duke Street
St James’s will provide 3,234m2 of office
accommodation, spread over six upper
floors with two levels of retail offering
1,034m2 of space.
The building aims to achieve BREEAM
‘Outstanding’ for its commercial floors and
BREEAM ‘Very Good’ for its retail zone,
while the project as a whole, is targeting a
WELL Building Gold Standard rating for
its shell and core. The latter certification
recognises the building has been designed
as a healthy and productive space for its
future occupants.
Occupying a footprint of 36m × 21m,
32 Duke Street St James’s replaces two
old buildings that were demolished prior
to main contractor Skanska starting on
site. Inheriting a cleared plot, the initial
construction task for Skanska was to
deepen the existing single-level basement,
to two levels, with the lowest floor B2
housing the building’s plant equipment,
bicycle storage and changing rooms.
The building’s substructure is formed
with concrete, and the main steel frame
begins at basement level one. The only
exception being two columns which are
founded on the lowest slab to form the
retail zone’s goods lift.
A concrete core, situated alongside
a party wall provides the main vertical
stability, with beams up to 13m-long,
forming a diaphragm and connecting it to
the perimeter columns to provide columnfree
floorplates.
Floor construction, above ground floor,
is composite, with steel beams supporting
5,000m2 of metal decking and a concrete
topping.
“Cellular beams have been used
throughout the project, with service holes
at regular intervals to give maximum
flexibility to future occupiers in terms of
service distribution,” says Bourne Steel
Project Manager Stephane Dubois.
The use of cellular beams and their
ability to accommodate services within
their depth was one of the reasons for
choosing a steel-framed solution for this
project.
“We looked at other framing materials,
but steelwork offered the most economical
solution as we were able to keep the
integrated structural void and services
zone within the beam depths and thereby
build the required number of floors within
a 37m-high structure,” says Waterman
Structures Director Richard Whitehead.
Maximising the available space also
had a bearing on the choice of column
members used on this scheme. The
majority of perimeter columns at 32 Duke
Street St James’s are solid billets, as opposed
to the more traditional I-sections.
Billlets generally have smaller
dimensions, 350mm × 125mm for this
project, and consequently they intrude less
into the building’s useable space than one
would expect from other steel sections.
“Billets are also flat to the façade, giving
a more aesthetically-pleasing and neater
interior finish,” adds Mr Whitehead.
In keeping with the steelwork’s aesthetic
theme, many of the column splice
connections were designed to be within
the floor depth, in order to hide them from
view as many areas of the steel frame will
remain exposed in the completed building.
The majority of the steel frame’s
connections are via fin plates. However,
due to the large loads at many locations on
the upper floors where the floorplates step
back, Bourne Steel also had to design more
complex stub connections.
The building steps back at level four to
create an outdoor terrace and then again
at level six where the façade incorporates
a mansard formed with raking columns.
In these areas, transfer beams have been
The latest scheme in London’s ongoing St James’s
redevelopment is an eight-storey steel-framed office block which
will help to further enhance the area’s business credentials.
FACT FILE
32 Duke Street
St James’s, London
Main client:
The Crown Estate
Architect:
Rolfe Judd
Main contractor:
Skanska
Structural engineer:
Waterman Structures
Steelwork contractor:
Bourne Steel
Steel tonnage: 600t
The completed building
will offer 3,234m2
of office space in a
prestigious location
22 NSC
July/Aug 18
/Multi-storey_office_buildings
/BREEAM
/Concept_design#Concrete_or_steel_cores
/Concept_design#Structural_options_for_stability
/Floor_systems
/Floor_systems#Composite_slabs
/Floor_systems#Composite_slabs
/Steel_construction_products#Cellular_beams
/Service_integration
/Braced_frames
/Steel_construction_products#Standard_open_sections
/Facades_and_interfaces
/Simple_connections#Column_splices
/Simple_connections#Fin_plates