Patterns in the Penthouse

One Osnaburgh is a prestigious residential tower next to London’s Regent's Park. Our project for the Level 16 duplex refurbishment was to detail, for fabrication, the steelwork and aluminium for an architectural staircase and feature balustrade.

The first challenge of this fantastic commission was the site constraints, the residence was at the penthouse level and so all items had to be transported in the service lift. This meant we had to take into account the size of all component parts when designing and detailing the metalwork for fabrication. The steelwork for the bespoke staircase was designed to be fixed only to floor slabs as all surrounding walls were party walls. And the aesthetic requirements of the design meant that all tread supports and fixings had to be hidden to create a super-clean, minimal line.

The balustrade is central to the apartment’s design as a room divider and an eye-catching interior architectural feature. As such, off-the-peg fretwork sheets, with their pattern already inlaid, weren’t an option and it provided the perfect opportunity to show off our skills in aluminium. The complex fretwork was painstakingly drawn by our engineer, using AutoCAD and Tekla, who manipulated the pattern to work within the available panel sizes. Our detailing was then sent to a machinist to fabricate and the result in situ is stunning.

This is exactly the sort of project we love to get our teeth into, great challenges bring out the best in our teams and produce the best results for our clients.

Images from Fluid Structures and Johnson Naylor