Asta House - Local living in Fitzrovia

Posted 24.06.2020

By Make

The penthouse roof terrace

As 80 Charlotte Street, our major mixed-use development in London’s Fitzrovia, draws near completion, we’re celebrating finishing Asta House, which forms a significant part of the scheme. This newly converted and refurbished building is adjacent to the main urban block, and houses 26 new residences and 1,000m2 of new workplace.

Asta House, first built in the 1950s, sits within the Charlotte Street Conservation Area. To help preserve the distinctive character of the neighbourhood, we retained a substantial amount of the structure and brick facade, painting it black. We added two new upper levels – one floor fully extended, the other set back – and extended the rear, providing 25% more area while maintaining the local scale.

The new homes, on levels 1 to 5, offer a mix of 1- to 3-bed apartments, including two penthouses and four intermediate units. The industrial-inspired interiors feature a monochrome palette, Crittall-style windows and fire screens, smoked oak veneer entrance doors, band-sawn timber flooring, and grooved timber panelling. The concept has been applied throughout, from the main entrance lobby to each apartment interior. Some apartments also have a system of integrated joinery, designed by Make, that runs from the kitchen to the bedrooms.

Whitfield Street elevation

In the top-lit stairwell we retained the original terrazzo-finish stair from the lower ground to level 3, after which it becomes folded metal stairs with a timber tread. Outdoors, residents have access to a shared courtyard terrace, and penthouses enjoy private terraces.

The new workplace, on the ground and lower ground floors, is now home to engineering firm Elliott Wood and its new co-working space, The Building Society. The open-plan areas benefit from greater daylight, visual connections and air circulation, thanks to larger windows, removed upstands, and a pulled-back ground-floor slab that has created internal lightwells along Whitfield Street and the corner of Chitty Street. We also maximised floor-to-ceiling heights by exposing the services. The industrial aesthetic continues here, evident in the exposed concrete, the structure and services, the monochrome palette, and new bespoke items like caged linear lighting.

The main residential entrance, at 65 Whitfield Street, with the ground floor workplace on either side.

The residential lobby, with concierge desk, banquette seating, vintage Italian lighting fixtures, and band-sawn timber flooring.

Retained terrazzo stair to level 3.

Blackened timber bathroom ‘pods’ (above) in the 1-bed apartments containing sliding doors on either side to close off the bedroom. An electric switch turns the glazing opaque.