9 Orange Street

9 Orange Street dates originally from the early fifties and is located between Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square in the West End. The ground and basement floors of the building were linked to the adjacent Comedy Theatre and contained their ‘back of stage facilities’ (dressing rooms, wardrobe, technicians offices, crew room etc.) whilst the upper three floors (first, second and third) and the sub-basement were completely separate and had office usage. All of this accommodation was wrapped around a dank, pigeon infested lightwell.

Our brief was to increase the areas of offices and theatre back of stage facilities. This we achieved by infilling the central lightwell at all levels, extending the third floor offices on the Orange Street facade and by building a new fourth floor office ‘pavilion’ and plantroom on the roof. An area swap was also negotiated between the office and theatre uses in which the sub-basement office archive storage areas were given to the theatre in exchange for two dressing rooms adjacent to the office entrance which enabled the creation of a new double-height entrance foyer.

The theatre remained open throughout the construction period which increased the complexity of the project and the length of time on site. As well as the complete refurbishment/re-building of the interiors the brick exterior was rendered and new windows provided throughout in order to give the building a new identity/image.