Millennium Bridge House, London, UK

The refurbishment of One Millennium Bridge creates a contemporary outlook for this London landmark, set in a prominent location on the North Bank of the River Thames. Alongside a complete revitalisation of the building the project will establish new views to the river and to St Paul’s Cathedral, improving accessibility to the historic icons of the built environment that surround it.

The project reconfigured the massing of the 250,000 ft² 1980s office building. Works include stripping the building back to its structural frame, undertaking numerous extensions, reconfiguring atria and re-cladding the entire facade. The transformation delivers centrally located office accommodation with a host of facilities for tenants and the community, including new retail and restaurants and multiple accessible roof terraces at upper levels.

Whilst the existing building’s roof offered no rooftop amenities and all usable space was dedicated to HVAC plant, NDY’s thermal storage design enabled repurposing of the space. This opened up more than 26,909 ft² of roof space for public use through garden, retail and restaurant facilities alongside additional A Grade office space.

One Millennium Bridge is an all-electric building with a thermal storage design, utilising large chilled and low temperature hot water storage tanks, located in the existing basement, with water cooled chillers to transfer and recover heat. Using chilled and low temperature hot water tanks in this way allows for full heat recovery, minimising primary heating plant. The thermal storage system shifts heating and cooling peak loads from peak to non-peak times, reducing operating costs and improving plant efficiency.

Currently under construction, the refurbishment has been designed to retain much of the building’s structural mass, has targeted a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating and was a shortlisted finalist at The Energy Awards 2021.

Read more about the innovative thinking that makes One Millennium Bridge so remarkable.