Vert starts occupied Carreras building refurbishment

Vert Projects is delivering a major occupied-building refurbishment at Greater London House in Camden, transforming the former Carreras cigarette factory while approximately 3,500 people continue to use the property.

The contractor lists an anticipated project value of approximately £20m and a 58-week construction programme covering around 36,000 sq ft. Client Lazari Investments has separately described the wider refurbishment as a £22m project, so the two current source figures should be treated as different descriptions of the programme rather than collapsed into one definitive contract value.

The work includes demolition of the existing frontage to create an external terrace, construction of a new 600 sq m roof terrace, phased refurbishment of reception and lift lobbies, and upgrades to workplace and amenity areas. The wider scheme also includes photovoltaic panels, landscaping, green walls, and other urban-greening measures.

Greater London House occupies the former Carreras factory at Mornington Crescent, a building recognised for its Egyptian-influenced frontage and early reinforced-concrete construction. The property was converted to office use after cigarette production ended and has already undergone substantial internal change during its working life.

The current programme therefore has to reconcile contemporary office expectations with an established structure and a building that remains operational. That is a markedly different construction problem from taking possession of an empty refurbishment site.

Reception and lift-lobby areas will be stripped and rebuilt in phases to maintain access to occupied floors. Those spaces sit on the main circulation routes through the property, so each phase must preserve safe entry, escape, accessibility, security, and vertical movement while adjoining areas are under contractor control.

The presence of thousands of occupants also constrains when disruptive work can be carried out. Demolition, drilling, temporary isolation of services, deliveries, waste movements, and testing all have to be planned around an office population that expects the building to function despite the construction activity around it.

Temporary works and segregation become particularly important where public and construction routes approach one another. Hoardings and controlled access can separate people physically, but logistics still have to accommodate deliveries, materials handling, contractor movement, and emergency arrangements within an established central London property.

Building services present another significant interface. Refurbishment of occupied premises often requires existing systems to remain live until replacement equipment is installed, tested, commissioned, and ready to take over. Switching between old and new systems can therefore become as programme-sensitive as the visible architectural works.

The planned roof terrace introduces separate structural and waterproofing considerations. New hard landscaping, planting, photovoltaic equipment, furniture, and associated finishes add permanent and variable loads that must be checked against the retained structure, while roof penetrations and new drainage interfaces have to maintain long-term weather performance.

Urban greening adds further construction detail beneath the finished appearance. Planters, growing media, irrigation, outlets, root management, maintenance access, and waterproofing need to function together, particularly where planting sits above occupied accommodation and any leak becomes an operational problem rather than a snag confined to an empty site.

The refurbishment also demonstrates why retained buildings rarely offer the certainty suggested by drawings alone. Historic records can establish original design intent, but opening-up works may reveal altered structures, redundant services, previous repairs, undocumented penetrations, and later modifications that affect the current design.

That uncertainty has to be controlled without allowing discovery to consume the programme. Early surveys and intrusive investigations can reduce risk, but design teams still need procedures for rapidly assessing unforeseen conditions and agreeing revised details once construction exposes the existing fabric.

The project team includes dMFK as architect, The Morton Partnership on engineering, and Hambury Hird Design as project manager. Lazari has also identified specialist design-and-build partners including KPA Electrical, ODH Services, Northvale Construction, and Frixos Metalworks.

The client’s programme places particular emphasis on retention and reuse rather than wholesale redevelopment. That avoids replacing the building’s primary structure, although substantial new services, finishes, terraces, envelope interventions, and fit-out still carry material and embodied-carbon consequences of their own.

Commercial landlords increasingly face that balance when older offices require substantial improvement. Retention can preserve structural value and reduce demolition, but only where the existing building is capable of accommodating the servicing, energy, accessibility, amenity, and regulatory requirements expected by modern occupiers.

Greater London House provides an unusually visible test because the building is architecturally distinctive, heavily occupied, and positioned in a part of London where office requirements continue to evolve. The construction team must improve the asset without removing either its occupants or the character that makes replacement unattractive.

Completion is expected in autumn 2027. Until then, the quality of delivery will depend as much on what existing occupants do not experience — uncontrolled disruption, failed services, unsafe interfaces, and missed access — as on the reception, terraces, and landscaped spaces they see when the programme is finished.