Caroline Place

All the floors and roof were replaced, and a basement was added extending across the full site. A solid stone feature staircase spiralling from basement to third floor with a tensioned brass bar balustrade completed the sleek new interior.

The basement was underpinned directly below the existing party walls while the masonry front and rear façades were carefully held in place above. The temporary works were coordinated with the permanent works to either be reused or cast in, simplifying the construction sequence, and allowing work to proceed on multiple levels of the building. The concrete soffit of the ground floor that formed the basement box was left exposed and scabbled back to leave a textured finish mirrored by the rough soffit of the staircase.

The staircase is Italian travertine limestone and springs from steel beams on the landings to a blockwork wall along the side of the property. The winding sections are reinforced with steel dowels to allow the individual treads to span the small gap and the straighter sections are unreinforced stone treads. The balustrade guard mesh is made from brass bars tensioned from the basement all the way to the roof and with crossing spirals of bars mirroring the staircase to form a stiff mesh.