Ardmore Chancery Lane refurbishment: retention and carbon savings for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
LS Estates has appointed RED Group as construction manager to restart the stalled refurbishment of 5 Chancery Lane, a 1910 building being retrofitted to provide 105,000 sq ft of office space while retaining the façade and 86% of the existing structure. The partial retention strategy is expected to avoid 4,800 tonnes of CO₂, cut construction waste and deliver ongoing operational savings of about 540 tonnes of CO₂ per year compared with the existing building. A new glass dome will increase daylight to upper floors, and the scheme is pre-assessed for BREEAM Excellent, with Gardiner & Theobald providing project and cost management.
Technical Brief
- RED Group appointed as construction manager to restart works following Ardmore’s collapse mid-project.
- Gardiner & Theobald engaged in dual role as project manager and quantity surveyor, centralising commercial control.
- Construction restart on a partially completed 1910 structure demands detailed as-built verification before any new intrusive works.
- Heritage façade retention on a stalled site implies complex temporary works review and possible redesign of propping.
- Rapid onboarding of RED’s supply chain is critical to re-sequencing trades and mitigating delay-related cost escalation.
- Change of contractor mid-refurbishment typically triggers renewed structural condition surveys and services mapping to confirm residual capacities.
- BREEAM Excellent pre-assessment will drive detailed commissioning, airtightness testing and post-occupancy performance verification.
- Similar stalled-retrofit schemes in dense urban centres can leverage this construction-management model to de-risk contractor insolvency impacts.
Our Take
LS Estates appears in both this 5 Chancery Lane scheme and the Portwall Place office project in Bristol (20 July 2026), signalling that it is building a repeat-client relationship with RED Group on UK commercial refurb and new-build work.
Retaining 86% of the existing 1910 structure at 5 Chancery Lane with an estimated 540 tCO₂e annual saving puts this London refurbishment towards the higher end of structural re-use intensity seen in our recent UK Infrastructure coverage, which may help it align with tightening embodied-carbon expectations from institutional landlords.
For contractors like Ardmore, delivery of a high-retention refurbishment in the United Kingdom strengthens credentials in complex heritage and deep retrofit work, a niche that is becoming commercially important across the 908 Infrastructure stories where sustainability-led upgrades are increasingly prominent.
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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