1 Newhall Street, Birmingham

Date Complete 2017
Location UK England
Client Wates Construction
Architect AHR Architects

Project Summary

1 Newhall Street provides modern, Grade A office accommodation with ground floor retail space.
The building, formally known as Phoenix House, occupies a prime location in the heart of Birmingham’s business district.
This renovation and fit out of the 12 storey building increased the floorplates of the office accommodation by extending to the rear of the site.

At the front, the building was re-clad with a new glass facade to increase the amount of natural light and create a more contemporary entrance to the offices. New heating and cooling systems were added along with new lifts and M&E.
Alongside the office space, the 50,000 sq. foot development provides secure parking, cycle storage and shower and change facilities. The development also provides a large ground floor retail unit.

Services Provided

Sandy Brown provided acoustic advice for the redevelopment and fit out of 1 Newhall Street. Principal considerations for the project included:

  • Environmental noise measurements
  • Design of the new glass facade and the performance of the building envelope
  • Internal sound insulation between floors and adjacencies
  • Noise and vibration from mechanical plant

Special Acoustic Features

The key acoustic design element for the refurbishment of the building was achieving appropriate level of sound insulation between floors in the completed building. To inform the need for this sound insulation testing was undertaken of a sample of the existing floors to determine what it would be possible to achieve; the tests confirmed that a level of performance compatible with British Council for Offices recommendations was possible and the design was developed on this basis which had implications for the new external cladding to the building and the slab edge details which were reviewed and specified appropriately. A further enhanced standard was adopted for the separation between the ground floor retail space and the offices above.