20 St James's Square
Robert Adam designed the house in the 1770s for Sir Watkin Williams Wynn. After a full restoration it is a self-contained headquarters of 13,000 sq ft, with its historic rooms restored, a private courtyard and a roof terrace. We made the images that showed what the house would become.
- Planning
- Granted
- Listing
- Grade I
- Original architect
- Robert Adam, 1770s
- Development manager
- PTSP
- Architect
- James Gorst Architects
- Main contractor
- Quinn London
- Letting agent
- JLL
- Images
- 3 exteriors, 4 courtyard and roof terrace, 12 interiors
The brief
The images had two readers. Heritage consultants needed to see that the new work would sit quietly in an Adam house. The letting team needed a tenant to picture themselves there.
So the existing building led. Its materials and proportions set the visual language, and every view was framed to keep Adam's original details in sight.
Details, restored and retained
Adam's plasterwork, painted panels and joinery were repaired and kept as part of the restoration. His drawings for the house are held at Sir John Soane's Museum, and each detail was shown as it would be once restored.
Working from the building
An Adam interior leaves no room for approximation. A ceiling rose a few centimetres off centre, or a cornice at the wrong depth, is noticed at once by a conservation officer.
So the interiors were modelled against a measured 3D scan of the house, a navigable record of every room that can be measured from directly. Ceilings, cornices, doorcases and window reveals sit where they really are, not where a drawing suggests. New furniture, lighting and finishes were then placed around the historic fabric, never over it.
Where accuracy depends on it, we bring in the right capture technology, from 3D scanning to measured survey, and manage it as part of the work.