Architecture studio Groupwork is set to reinstate the facades of a group of 19th-century shops in Clerkenwell, London, as part of its renovation of a 1970s office block.
The architecture studio plans to clad the office block's facade with a perforated brass structure that takes it shape from a group of eight Victorian and Edwardian-era shops that were demolished in the 1960s to make way for the current building.
Groupwork intend to "resurrect" the Victorian facades that were previously on Greville Street
Described by Groupwork's founder Amin Taha as a "memory veil" the brass structure will be an edited version of the previous buildings' facades.
"We intend to resurrect, in three-millimetre-thick mesh, the full form, roofline and details of eight 18th and 19th-century buildings cleared by the 70s office, but broken and suspended away from existing and new structures," Taha told Dezeen. The building will be extended in Bleeding Heart Yard
The mesh will wrap around the Greville Street facade of the 1970s building and a rear cross-laminated timber (CLT) extension that will be built in Bleeding Heart Yard to reinstate the previous buildings' boundaries.
The overall shape is based on research carried out by historic building specialist Donald Insall Associates.
The project will recreate facades demolished in 1960
"We asked Donald Insall to investigate the history, find any archived surveys and so on," Taha told Dezeen. "Projecting f...