Walworth Town Hall - A LinkedIn Tour

A few weekends ago I joined Feix&Merlin Architects , General Projects and General People giving public tours around the newly refurbished Walworth Town Hall, a Category B workplace scheme I led as Project Architect for four fascinating years whilst working at Feix&Merlin Architects.

Tour-goers seemed to enjoy the winding route around the now-unified five buildings that make up Walworth Town Hall, so for anyone interested that didn't come along on the day, here is my tour in a (long) readable story format.

Context

The Walworth Town Hall had been closed since a fire in 2013 shut the building and functions were relocated to other parts of Southwark. It took roughly two years to develop proposals, get permissions and start construction on site following General Projects & Feix&Merlin's competition win in 2019. Work commenced in early 2022 and completed in 2024.

The tour began with visitors entering from the new Walworth Square, which was created as part of Lendlease's Elephant Park development next door. The Elephant Park development replaced the Heygate estate, seen on the left in the photo below that looks down Walworth Road towards Camberwell.

As the original entrance to the building was located on Walworth Road, one of the key moves of the retrofit project was to increase accessibility to the building by rotating the main entrance axis 90° to address the new Walworth Square. This was achieved at public realm level through the alteration of three windows to create new doors and adding new stone steps with integrated platform lift, leading to the new public Café.

The project to refurbish the Grade II Listed Town Hall, formerly Southwark Town Hall, was necessary as a result of a fire in 2013 that caused significant damage to some of the main parts of the building, along with the unavoidable water damage caused by the London Fire Brigade whilst extinguishing it. We were told that the fire was caused by hot works.

Those tasked with looking after the building in the aftermath of the fire told the design team that their main activities had been to rehouse the contents of the buildings, stabilise the existing structure, install temporary roofs to make the building watertight again, dry the building out and prevent further loss of heritage fabric.

The set of buildings that make up the new Walworth Town Hall site can be seen in the image below. These are:

1. The Original Vestry Hall - 1865 - yellow ??
2. The Newington Library - 1892 - green ??
3. The Town Hall extension - 1902 - blue ??
4. The Cuming Museum - 1906 - purple ??
5. Infill building - unknown date - red ??

With the exception of the replacement of the West Wing roof, which was carried out in 2016 by Donald Insall Associates , and the meanwhile use of the former Newington Library by the Art Academy, the buildings sat idle for years until construction on the General Projects and Feix&Merlin Architects scheme commenced.

Having entered from the new Walworth Square, tour-goers met in the public Café - the new heart of the building - which is connected to the Walworth Community Space that now occupies the ground floor of the former Newington Library following extensive 'cut and carve' works to join the buildings together at multiple levels.

Design Principles

Before departing on the tour, I explained the general 'light touch' design principles adopted for the project. Through dialogue with the very collaborative Catherine Jeater and Michael Tsoukaris at Southwark Council, and as a result of two pre-application meetings and a design review panel (DRP), the Feix&Merlin team worked up the scheme using a 'Selective Restoration' conservation strategy, meaning that we sought to celebrate the history of the building by preserving and amplifying what we were left with following the fire.

The aforementioned DRP was chaired by Toby Johnson , Managing Director of Haworth Tompkins, who had previously completed the incredible transformation of the Battersea Arts Center, seen below. Toby encouraged us to be bolder in the key spaces of the building.

'Selective Restoration'

In the years between the fire and the commencement of this project, Southwark Council developed their own plans to reimagine the building. Ultimately, at an estimated cost of ￡40m, it was decided that it was not a good use of money and the plans were dropped.

There were likely several reasons for the high costs, including the extent of the overall scope, but it was also likely, at least in part, to be because of the attempt to try and return the building to what it used to be. We saw two challenges:

1. What point in time would one try and take a building back to, if scholarly restored throughout? Internally it has changed substantially since first built, as evidenced by the material found by Donald Insall Associates and included within their Heritage Report for planning, as well as the historic paint sampling later carried out by Heritage Architecture Ltd and paint specialist Catherine Hassall.
2. The fire was a significant event and one that shouldn't be forgotten, given that it presented an opportunity to take a different approach.

Southwark council ultimately embraced the selective restoration approach as a chance to create a new chapter in the building's history.

Room Categories

Through discussion with Southwark's conservation team and Historic England, we built on the Statement of Significance within the existing Conservation Management Plan for the building by developing a Room Category Schedule. The schedule broke the building down into smaller areas that we would take different approaches toward, in agreement with stakeholders. The categories were:

• ?? Category A rooms - the most significant in terms of heritage: the former Council Chamber, first floor of the Newington Library and the Grand Staircase.
• ?? Category B rooms - most other spaces above ground level in the Vestry Hall, Town Hall Extension, Newington Library and the Cuming Museum.
• ?? Category C rooms - spaces with less heritage significance e.g. basement rooms and ancillary spaces.

?? The agreed strategy for Category A spaces was that they were to be at least partly reinstated in a scholarly manner i.e. put back mostly how they were at some point in time before the fire. New building services needed to be concealed and there would be a few permitted interventions needed to achieve the vision put forward.

?? Category B spaces were largely retained in the condition they were found, 'cleaned up' including a new unified decoration approach throughout, but with building services on display and larger adaptations permitted if justified.

?? Category C spaces would be upgraded to modern standards and contain the more dense on display building services needed to meet modern standards of servicing.

Mass Timber

With the conservation approach agreed and having been urged to be bolder in key spaces, we chose to pioneer the use of mass timber on the project (the first we think on a listed public building in the UK - but please correct me if you know otherwise), in order to reduce the amount steel, concrete and therefore embodied carbon on the scheme.

The mass timber came in two types - Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) used for large span 'planks' and Glued Laminated Timber (Glulam) used for columns, beams and truss members. The type of timber was spruce, the timber came from 斯道拉恩索 , and the fabricators and installers were B&K Structures .

In addition to being a more sustainable approach and actively sequestering carbon, the mass timber would be the final finished aesthetic once applied with a flame retardant multi-layer coating.

The design intent was to create a bold appearance that would compliment yet distinguish the new interventions from the existing heritage fabric, with form derived from its immediate surroundings and historical context.

The mass timber was over engineered by Heyne Tillett Steel to allow a thickness for charring, offering protection to the structure in the event of a fire, whilst more bespoke details - of which there were many - were developed in conjunction with Ignis - Fire Design Consulting.

More information about the use of mass timber can be found in a RIBA J article that I contributed to on behalf of Feix&Merlin Architects in 2022, seen above.

The Café

The new large square-shaped plan of the space was created by removing walls to the previous corridor that saw a compartmentalised layout of smaller council offices. Along the lines of removed walls, new microcement floor finishes and cambered arch beams denote the previous layout and reference the cambered arches seen across the Town Hall.

A new parquet floor was installed, referencing that seen throughout the building, whilst a level datum was struck across the room for the spring heights of the curved timber beams and Clayworks Ltd clay plaster above, providing clean new finishes to the top and bottom of the newly defined space. This enabled us to leave the heritage fabric - including traces of the 2013 fire - exposed as found, forming part of the 'selective restoration' conservation approach and preserving the building's history.

With the new building entrance located to the left hand side of the photo above, the Café bar behind, an expanded WC block + new lift shaft to the right, and access to each of the five original buildings on three sides via new glazed fire rated doors, the Café serves as the hub of the building and works hard to connect spaces together in an open, accessible and slightly whimsical post-modern way - see matching spruce cornicing.

The Grand Staircase

Moving on from the relaxed setting of the new Café, the route for the tour led visitors further into the Vestry Hall via the original Grand Staircase, which was restored in a scholarly manner as part of the works. Walls and ornamental mouldings were replastered in Lime, the original stone floor was uncovered and refurbished, a new patent glazing skylight was added in place of the 1970's dropped ceiling and historic plaques were refurbished and reinstalled as pride of place on the top landing.

The Council Chamber

The former Council Chamber, which was the central administrative function space of the building, has been converted into a triple height space and features a mass timber reinstated roof structure left as the exposed finish, tying it visually to the other new major interventions in the building.

The decision not to reinstate the former ceiling line narrowly above the heads of the windows meant the existing brick walls above were left exposed, signalling the previous extent of the room. These were painted, along with the concrete ring beam above that had been installed straight after the fire to hold the four walls together, after the loss of the floor structure during the fire compromised the external walls' lateral support.

New parquet flooring was installed above the new CLT floor structure, whilst windows were replaced in a like for like manner, albeit double glazed, and wall lights were added at a height relating to the human scale. External walls and details such as skirtings, window apron and lunette mouldings were scholarly restored in plaster and using 'squeezes' where profiled.

Using the extra volume to the room, we designed a new horseshoe shaped 'coworking gallery' reflecting the same 90° shift in focus towards Walworth Square as the Café below.

In addition to valuable extra working space that allows building users to occupy the grand, Category A room at multiple levels, the new 'gallery' has the practical purpose of concealing building services within a densely packed floor void designed by RED Engineering Design , conditioning the large volume to modern standards and meeting the strategy for concealed services agreed with Southwark.

Design inspiration for the new mezzanine balustrade was taken from the fretwork guarding that adorned the previous gallery that was salvaged from the fire. The pattern was digitally traced, scaled up, whilst perforation sizes were checked for compliance with building regulations and water-jet cut from mild steel sheets, with sharp edges buffed out.

The feature of the space is undoubtedly the replaced roof. Given the council's desire to reinstate it in a like-for-like manner externally, at the planning stage we dropped proposals to install a roof light in favour of an artificial Barrisol lighting system.

The art gallery-like light prevents natural glare from the sun and ensures constant light levels across the space. The trusses are similar to the originals, only constructed from glulam (compression) and steel (tension) elements, seen below.

'Typical' Offices

After the Council Chamber we toured a number of the 'typical' offices i.e. not function spaces of the original buildings.

On the other side of the Grand Staircase from the Council Chamber is the old Mayor's Parlour and supplementary offices, one of which now features a mezzanine floor occupying half of the room to make the most of the high ceiling heights.

As Category B rooms, we adopted a consistent approach to the treatment of typical offices, which included sprayed out high-level services routed from new discretely located service risers and the light-touch refurbishment of floors, wall finishes above dado height and ceilings, contrasted with bold heritage paint colours below the dado line and on joinery items such as windows and doors. Although different colours, we hoped that this consistent approach would harmonise spaces across the buildings.

Broadly speaking, the decoration scheme included:

• Green - Ground floor
• Blue - First floor
• Burgundy - Second floor

New Mass Timber Extension

Above the second floor offices in the Town Hall Extension part of the building, where a temporary roof had existed since the fire in 2013, we used the opportunity of reinstating the heritage roof provided to create another floor of office accommodation without exceeding the old roof height.

Using mass timber here too meant that the floor to the new office space would be constructed of CLT, which could be left exposed at high level in the typical second floor offices below, see photo above, and offer a variant to the 'typical' office ceiling type.

Once the temporary roof was removed, another much larger temporary sliding roof, pictured above, was installed to protect the building from the elements during the works. The tops of the existing masonry walls were surveyed and levelled out, ready for the precisely devised prefabricated mass timber structure to be dropped into place on top of.

The new office space occupies most of the Town Hall Extension floor plate and was carefully designed to integrate roof pitches and dormer windows around the existing and retained chimney structures. The space is conditioned through concealed units in spruce-clad low-level boxing out, whilst storage is also provided here, and the two pavilion ends that can be seen from Walworth Square were devised as cosy meeting spaces.

Terrace, WC Block and Lift Shaft

From the new mass timber extension the tour headed back downstairs and crossed the newly created terrace at the centre of the five buildings. The terrace acts as a breakout space and building connector, with a new pavement light in the floor providing top down light into the Café extension below. The terrace is flanked by the Vestry Hall and former Cuming Museum buildings (left and right of the photo below) and sits next to the extended WC block (in front) that provides amenity to multiple offices at the centre of the new Walworth Town Hall plan.

Behind the WC block are two new lift shafts, which vastly increase the amount of accessible workspace across the buildings whilst sitting in the middle of the site and therefore reducing visual impact from Walworth Square. Accessed by lightweight open but covered steel external walkways, the materiality was harmonised again to reduce visual impact.

The Newington Library

The last Category A space on the tour was the refurbished Newington Library, now only a short walk from the new terrace. The library building was not affected by the fire and as such was much simpler to bring back to its former glory.

The main interventions included refurbishing the original floors, relocating a fire lobby that had previously been placed inside the room, demolishing the enclosure to and exposing the spiral staircase that previously extended from the ground floor level up to the Librarian's private quarters on the second floor, removing solid panels between the original mezzanine balustrade (a later addition), and creating new structural openings towards the centre of the building to increase accessibility and connectivity.

Mechanical services were again concealed within the space, dropping from the mezzanine floor void, whilst new globe pendant and canned downlights were added throughout to provide effective working nooks between bookshelves, which were refinished along with the complete redecoration of the space.

The Cuming Museum

The former Cuming Museum with its barrel vaulted ceiling saw its collection removed from the building and redistributed around Southwark following the 2013 fire. The collection curator was consulted about rehousing elements in the refurbished Walworth Town Hall for the project, however as the collection is now disaggregated, the offer wasn't taken up, and so it will be used as a self-contained office space.

For the space's impressive height and form, we took a similar refurbishment approach as with the 'typical' offices i.e. a coloured lower datum. In the absence of existing heritage plaster at higher levels however, we instead opted for a two-tone colour scheme using Clayworks Ltd clay plaster up to the spring height of the ceiling in order to break up the amount of painted surface and create a calm feeling space.

At the end of the large office volume the room has been expanded into what was previously a side room. The new open plan layout enables better functionality and provides private amenity and meeting areas, whilst also allowing on display building services at high level to be kept hidden from view within the main part of the space.

The entrance sequence to the space was reworked, with a new discrete fire lobby replacing the previous, which jutted out into the large volume, similar to the Newington Library before the works. Elsewhere, a set of new double doors lead outside onto an external walkway leading to a half-landing lift level, providing wheelchair access where it did not exist previously. Four skylights were added to bring more natural light into the space and a raised floor was added, allowing services to be fed through discreetly.

The Walworth Community Space

At ground floor level, accessed from the Walworth Road and now connected directly to the Café fronting Walworth Square, the Walworth Community Space offers large and medium sized rooms for community use.

Everything had been moved out of the space by the time we got involved in the project, but I was told on the day of the tour that the space used to house the Newington Library's collection of children's books.

We took a very light touch approach to these spaces, given that they had been functioning flexibly for the meanwhile tenant in the years between the fire and the project beginning. The main space was left largely as it was barring the installation of new building services and unifying the bookshelves with the Newington Library space above, whilst on the other side of the central corridor two rooms have been created from the previous single larger space in order to offer more flexible and modest sized rooms to the community, whilst WCs have been added to increase public amenity.

That brings us full circle and with it, the end of the tour. Thank you for coming if you've made it this far. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

Personal Highlights

• Developing custom artwork with the whole Feix&Merlin Architects team, seen below.
• Working with General Projects , a great client maximising the potential of their projects.

For information about the Walworth Town Hall operations, contact General People.

For architectural enquiries, contact Feix&Merlin Architects.

Special mentions to the client side team: Julia Feix, Tarek Merlin, Eren McEwen Harry Cowley, Malcolm Pritchard, Jacob Loftus , Frederic Schwass, Joe Peake, Joanna Lee, Andy Heyne , Jonathan Flint, Stuart Campbell, Stas Brzeski, Ali Ahmad, Kwame Gyamfi (C Eng) Michael Atkinson, Peter Williamson amongst others.

And to the construction team past and present at Conamar and their subcontractors.