The Knightsbridge Estate is a world-class destination in central London set across half a million sq ft and offering premium retail, office accommodation, dining and café experiences, hotel and residential space in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. 

In the very heart of this iconic location, between Sloane Street and Brompton Road, a substantial redevelopment of part of the Knightsbridge Estate, owned by the Olayan Group and managed by Chelsfield, seeks to reinvigorate, restore and celebrate this iconic location.  Here The Olayan Group is delivering a scheme that will sit behind the existing heritage façades, retaining the unique character of the area, while delivering a brand new building that meets modern occupiers’ needs.

Fulcro is proud to be delivering technical coordination on this prestigious re-development project, providing 3d digital modelling (BIM) to ensure technical co-ordination  of the MEP design.  This challenge provided several opportunities for the whole team to contribute in resolving design issues related to the preservation of the historic façade and the site complexities and deliver a world class building. 

Fulcro’s expertise ensured the drainage design was concealed within the confined space between the retained façade and the new build, yet still provided ready access to rodding points for maintenance. For a client, this is a vital consideration as insurance statistics reveal that the most likely cause of claims in commercial buildings is water damage. Insurers now consider access for maintenance purposes should be given a higher priority within the design process to avoid expensive water damage, as finding the source of the leak and then repairing, is often costly.

Adapting our skill and knowledge to the specific needs of each project is a given. On The Knightsbridge Estate project, for example, we flexed our procurement and programme knowledge to support a number of scenarios i.e. We facilitated a better design and construction workflow through enabling a concurrent, rather than a traditional, process of design development. Working concurrently and directly with the design team enabled improvement to both programme time and production costs. Applying this method of working also enabled rapid design decision making E.g. interior fitout design requirements vs service routing in the retail units. To inform the project teams’ understanding, Fulcro developed 3D models to illustrate the service zones in order that the spatial constraints could be understood by the various stakeholders. This was done prior to technical production, thus avoiding re-work.

Other examples include temporary service connections to enable the project team to carry out commissioning. This mitigated the constraints of the construction sequence. Fulcro always look for an opportunity to contribute and do what is right in the pursuit of creating project certainty.

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