n3 London SW1
n3 is the fourth project that Lynch Architects are building for Landsec at Victoria in the City of Westminster in central London, and it sits beside and is an accompaniment to n2 which was completed in 2023. n2 is a relatively straightforward urban figure, a 17 story tower - despite the complexities of the below ground system of civic infrastructural elements, tube lines, sewers, etc. In contrast, n3 is much lower, 5-7 story L-shaped office building that wraps around the grade 2 listed Victoria Palace Theatre and Duke of York pub, consolidating the urban presence of these heritage buildings and seeking also, alongside n2, to mediate between their miniature scale and the much larger modernist and more recent building nearby. n3 has a deep, south-facing facade formed of balconies and slender X-shaped columns that provide solar shading and create a sympathetic contrast to the white faience facade of the neighbouring theatre. CLT floor slaps are combined with a partly-recycled steel structural frame, with opening windows on the facades enabling cross-ventilation across the quite narrow floor plates. We are re-constructing the facade and interior of a grade 2 listed structure as the western facade of our L-shaped block, a 1930s pawn brokers, Sutton House. The numerous onerous technical and cultural parameters include the need to encompass and house a 4 story ventilation shaft serving the Victoria Line tube station beneath our site. These proposals represent the final iteration of a series of designs undertaken by Lynch Architects for this site since 2007, and supersedes the planning consents gained by us for these sites in 2009, 2012 and 2016. A listed building application - replacing the numerous consents that we gained for earlier versions of projects on this site - was made summer 2024, and, if successful and a MMA is granted for changes to some other parts of the structure, work is expected to start on site in 2025 with completion planned for 2028. Part of n3 was built at scale 1:3 and exhibited at The Venice Biennale in 2012. Our approach to "conservation architecture" seeks to combine the twin meanings of "conservation" today: both in the sense of heritage conservation AND energy conservation and sustainability.
