Willmott Dixon’s London Fire Brigade HQ refurbishment: design and phasing notes for engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Willmott Dixon Interiors has secured preconstruction services to complete RIBA Stages 3–4 design for the major refurbishment of London Fire Brigade’s Grade II listed headquarters at 8 Albert Embankment, originally built in 1937. Works will include full replacement of plumbing, wiring, windows and roof, re-cladding of a 1980s control-room extension, new passenger lifts and internal partitions, plus complete refurbishment of appliance bays and the basement. Lambeth Fire Station, occupying ground to second floors, will temporarily vacate when construction starts in mid‑2027, with arrangements to keep the nearby river fire station operational.
Technical Brief
- Heritage constraint: Grade II listing and 1937 Art Deco fabric will govern structural and services interventions.
- 1980s former control-room extension re-cladding implies façade upgrade while retaining primary 1930s structural frame.
- Maintaining operational support to the Lambeth river fire station introduces access, egress and resilience constraints during works.
Our Take
Among the 738 Infrastructure stories in our database, relatively few involve refurbishment of 1930s emergency-service assets in central London, so the London Fire Brigade headquarters at 8 Albert Embankment sits in a niche segment where heritage constraints and resilience upgrades typically drive complex phasing and temporary works.
A mid‑2027 construction start in Lambeth suggests Willmott Dixon Interiors will be programming design and enabling works through a tight London planning and conservation environment, which often elongates pre‑construction for riverfront sites on the Thames compared with greenfield public-sector schemes elsewhere in the UK.
For London Fire Brigade, consolidating functions back into a refurbished headquarters after the 2007 relocation to Union Street aligns with a pattern in our Infrastructure coverage where blue‑light services use major refurbishments to rationalise dispersed estates and embed modern command-and-control facilities within historic shells.
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.
