The department store is open!

We’re delighted to announce that the Department store, the new offices for the architect practice Squire and Partners, is now open! The Department Store is a three storey Edwardian building (now four!), the previous home for Bon Marche and is situated in trendy Brixton, London.

Our involvement in this Squire and Partners project was to create a fourth floor, an oak framed roof top. This of course created obvious logistical challenges like getting the timber up onto a three storey building in central London, but nothing that a hoist system and a lot of planning couldn’t overcome.

The Carpenter Oak & Woodland Project Manager for the Brixton project, Piers Sweetingham, said: “The department store roof top is certainly a one off and is the perfect place for the employees at Squire and Partners to relax”.

Piers goes on to say: “The Department store was a truly exciting project, not only was the frame design really interesting with six roof lanterns and an intricate dragon beam arrangement, but it was also challenging in other ways too”. To find out more about the challenges read our case study.