IN Brief:
- RSHP has submitted planning applications for 70 and 68 Fenchurch Street.
- The proposals include refurbishment of the former Lloyd’s Register of Shipping building.
- The scheme reflects continued demand for retrofit, building reuse, and higher-performing City workspace.
RSHP has submitted planning applications linked to the refurbishment of the former Lloyd’s Register of Shipping building in the City of London.
The proposals cover 70 Fenchurch Street and 68 Fenchurch Street, with the scheme centred on a major intervention at one of the Square Mile’s more distinctive late-20th-century commercial buildings. The original Lloyd’s Register of Shipping building, completed between 1993 and 2000, was designed for a constrained urban site in an architecturally sensitive conservation area.
The existing building is notable for the way it combined retained historic fabric with contemporary office accommodation. It incorporated the Grade II-listed 71 Fenchurch Street building, while the wider design used tapered blocks arranged around atria, expressed service cores, transparent circulation elements, and an advanced building services strategy for its period.
RSHP’s project archive notes that Lloyd’s Register was the first UK project to use chilled beams for the ventilation and air conditioning of internal spaces. That technical legacy adds another layer to the refurbishment brief, because the building is already associated with a more experimental approach to office servicing and environmental control.
The new applications place the building within London’s current wave of commercial retrofit and asset repositioning. City office demand is increasingly concentrated around buildings that can demonstrate energy performance, adaptable floorplates, amenity, low-carbon credentials, and a stronger relationship with public realm. Refurbishment has become a central development route rather than a fallback where demolition is difficult.
Heritage-sensitive commercial retrofit requires careful technical coordination. Design teams must balance retained structure, listed fabric, façade performance, building services replacement, fire strategy, accessibility, workplace expectations, plant space, and planning sensitivity. Those requirements need to be resolved without losing the architectural character that gives the asset its value.
The Fenchurch Street setting adds to that complexity. A dense urban site, conservation considerations, neighbouring buildings, existing structural constraints, and historic street patterns all limit the scope for simple redevelopment. At the same time, prime City occupiers are looking for buildings that can compete with new space on comfort, flexibility, energy performance, and user experience.
Commercial retrofit across London is increasingly shaped by embodied carbon as well as planning risk. Retaining existing structure can reduce carbon associated with demolition and new construction, although the benefit depends on whether the building can realistically support modern servicing, compliance, accessibility, and leasing expectations. Poorly judged retention can create operational compromise; well-executed reuse can produce a lower-carbon asset with stronger townscape value.
That puts significant weight on early investigations. Existing structure, façade condition, plant replacement routes, risers, floor loading, escape strategy, and hidden defects all need to be understood before procurement is fixed. Unknown conditions remain one of the most common causes of cost and programme movement on major refurbishments, particularly where retained historic elements and live urban logistics are involved.
The scheme also reflects the changing role of architects in commercial building reuse. The design brief is no longer limited to refreshing interiors or upgrading reception space. It now includes carbon strategy, planning justification, heritage interpretation, services transformation, workplace competitiveness, and buildability across a constrained city-centre site.
The planning process will decide the final form of the proposals, but the direction of travel is already clear. London’s next generation of commercial construction will be shaped as much by intelligent reuse as by new towers. Fenchurch Street gives that shift a prominent test case in the heart of the City.
