Projects · Hotels
Four Points Express by Sheraton, County Hotel
Upper Woburn Place, Bloomsbury, London WC1
The County Hotel in Euston became the first Four Points Express by Sheraton in Europe: a 211-room, design-led hotel with an EPC A rating. Camden's planning committee has now unanimously approved a 39-bedroom extension, designed to be built while the hotel keeps trading.
- Client
- Splendid Hospitality Group
- Architect
- Maith Design, with interiors by SpaceInvader
- Our role
- Environmental and MEP engineer for the refurbishment; MEP strategy from inception to planning consent for the extension
- Size
- 211 rooms · 250 after the extension
Migration, not shutdown
Every system being replaced or relocated serves occupied guestrooms, the restaurant and back-of-house. The strategy is to build the new alongside the old and change over in short, planned windows agreed with the hotel in advance. A complete new ventilation installation on the new level 9 roof replaces the level 8 plant, with risers extended and systems swapped one by one. New VRF outdoor units are installed while the existing units run, then swapped unit by unit.
Swap one, keep one running
Four air source heat pumps move from the ground floor to the new main roof on a new pipework header: two relocate while two keep serving, then they swap, so hot water never stops. Kitchen extract is re-routed from the level 1 roof to the main roof inside a new brick pier. A new lift serving levels 0 to 8 is installed first, and the two existing lifts are then renewed one at a time, so guests always have a lift.
Through planning
Plant location, acoustics and conservation-area constraints were managed through the application, with the level of detail steered to secure unanimous council approval first time. The MEP strategy that carried the scheme through planning is the one that will build it: the step-by-step, swap-and-keep-running method we proved at Nobu Hotel Shoreditch.
Low-carbon refurbishment
Photovoltaic panels, air source heat pumps for hot water and high-efficiency VRF heating and cooling form the backbone of the refurbishment and extend into the new rooms. With LED lighting, lighting control and metering, the refurbishment achieved an EPC A rating and the extension is designed to the same benchmark.
