SOAS University of London appointed Beardwell to refurbish 53 Gordon Square – a six-storey Grade II listed Georgian building in Bloomsbury, and the former home of the Percival David Collection. The building is now part of the university’s Doctoral School. Our brief was to create modern facilities across all floors, delivered in a phased sequence to allow SOAS to begin occupying parts of the building before the work was fully complete.

Our Approach

We worked across all six floors – lower ground to the fourth. The lower ground floor was structurally altered to include a larger kitchen, updated study spaces with individual booth areas, refurbished WCs, and a new accessible toilet and shower room. Doorways were widened to make the floor fully accessible, and a new platform lift was installed between the ground and lower ground floors. A new accessible ramp was formed at ground level.

On the ground floor, structural alterations created a new gallery space and meeting rooms. Floors one to three were updated with new study spaces, tea points and (on the third floor) an accessible toilet and meeting room. The fourth floor was structurally altered to create an event space comprising a lounge, large dining room, WC and commercial kitchen. Throughout, all Georgian features – coving, architraves, skirtings and plasterwork – were carefully preserved.

The Challenge

The biggest hold-up was waiting for final confirmation of listed building consent on the finishing elements – skirtings and architraves. We revised our sequence to keep work moving while we waited. Structural issues also emerged after opening, including aged roof joists that couldn’t take the weight of modern equipment, requiring a solution before we could finish that area. Bespoke heritage elements came with long lead times, which we had to plan around.

SOAS needed the flexibility to move furniture in and have students start using parts of the building before we finished. We accommodated this throughout the project.

What We Delivered

• Full refurbishment across six floors of a Grade II listed Georgian building
• Structural alterations to lower ground, ground and fourth floors
• New platform lift and accessible ramp at ground level
• New kitchen, study spaces, booth areas and accessible WC facilities
• New fourth-floor event space: lounge, dining room and commercial kitchen
• New gallery space and meeting rooms at ground level
• All Georgian features preserved throughout
• Phased handover – SOAS began occupying floors while works continued

This project resulted in a careful, considered refurbishment of a building with character, allowing us to modernise it without losing important features that made it worth preserving.