The Brunswick Centre

The centre replaced streets of run-down Georgian era terrace housing

Construction began in 1967 and was completed in 1972.

Transforming the Brunswick Centre’s underused double-storey basement car park into a 207-bedroom hotel requires far more than fitting a new use into an existing space. Headroom is insufficient, the Grade-II listed structure sits beneath occupied homes and retail units, and the site offers only a single point of access within one of London’s busiest urban neighbourhoods. A conventional demolition approach would mean removing more than 3,000 tonnes of concrete, generating significant carbon emissions, programme delays and disruption to residents. As work begins, the challenge is to unlock entirely new accommodation while respecting the architectural significance of the building and allowing the users above to go about their business with minimal disruption.

Rather than demolishing the existing structure, we've devised an innovative slab-lowering methodology that reimagines how the basement could be transformed. Through extensive research, structural analysis, contractor collaboration and physical testing, temporary works engineers Campbell Brown designed the controlled hydraulic jacking system that sequentially lowers the existing concrete slab to create the additional headroom required for the hotel. The approach will retain the vast majority of the original structure, dramatically reducing embodied carbon, minimising waste, noise and vibration, and will protect the amenity of residents throughout construction. It is a powerful demonstration of how research-led engineering can unlock new opportunities by working intelligently with existing buildings rather than replacing them.

Retaining and lowering the existing basement slab avoids the removal of around 3,250 tonnes of concrete, preventing approximately 730 tonnes of embodied carbon emissions associated with demolition and waste processing. The innovative approach also eliminates the need to transport around 1,820m³ of concrete rubble from site—equivalent to approximately 73 large skip lorry loads - dramatically reducing vehicle movements, noise, dust and disruption in the heart of Bloomsbury.