12 Smithfield consent: low‑carbon retrofit and design notes for project teams
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Railpen has secured planning consent for 12 Smithfield, a repurposed office scheme delivering 122,000 sq ft of space with floorplates up to 20,000 sq ft across five levels, plus 9,400 sq ft of private terraces, a rooftop garden and 11,400 sq ft of retail, café and amenity space. Designed by Henley Halebrown, the project retains and upgrades the existing structure with a new façade and expanded public realm, targeting BREEAM Outstanding, EPC A, WELL Core Platinum, NABERS UK 5* and net zero carbon in operation. Completion is targeted for Q4 2028, coinciding with the new London Museum opening within the £400m Smithfield regeneration, less than five minutes from Farringdon and the Elizabeth Line.
Technical Brief
- New façade installation over an existing frame will require careful interface detailing and movement/joint coordination.
- Net zero in operation targets will drive high-performance building services, airtightness and on-site/off-site renewables integration.
- Similar London retrofit schemes are increasingly retaining primary frames to meet planning carbon expectations and heritage sensitivities.
Our Take
Railpen’s 12 Smithfield scheme follows its MY Central office block at the Mill Yard campus in Cambridge (topped out March 2026), signalling a consistent push into mixed-use, high-spec office assets with strong sustainability credentials across multiple UK cities.
Targeting a NABERS UK 5* rating at 12 Smithfield puts this London project at the upper end of energy-performance ambition in our Infrastructure coverage, which still features relatively few office schemes explicitly designed to this benchmark.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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