124-126 Horseferry Road

124-126 Horseferry Road

This building served as the national headquarters of Channel Four Television and now functions as its regional headquarters. Built between 1992 and 1994 to designs by Richard Rogers Partnership (with John Young as partner in charge), it contains offices, post-production edit suites, a restaurant, screening room and originally a studio. Structural engineers Ove Arup and Partners worked on the project.

The majority of the building is constructed from a reinforced concrete frame with metal and glass cladding. Conference rooms feature a steel pin-jointed frame, while the atrium frontage consists of glass suspended from above and held in tension by a steel cabling system devised by Arup.

The building is L-shaped in plan, occupying the corner between Horseferry Road to the west and Chadwick Street to the north. Rectangular office wings front each road, connected by a concave quadrant knuckle that frames a small piazza at the road junction. The structure comprises four floors above basement and lower-ground levels. Two terraces are positioned to the rear: one at ground-floor level above the larger footprint of the two lower floors, and another at third-floor level where the central knuckle is set back.

Each office wing contains two internal service cores with externally-expressed stair towers at each end. A lift tower serves the far end of the Chadwick Street wing, while three wall-climber lifts face Horseferry Road adjacent to the piazza. The basement accommodates plant, storage, staff well-being facilities and edit suites. The lower-ground floor contains open-plan office space, meeting rooms, staff facilities, and notably a fan-shaped screening room with circular foyer beneath the piazza, connected by stair to the atrium above. The ground floor features the atrium reception area and a large curved restaurant at a slightly lower level overlooking the garden, with the office blocks providing open-plan work space and loading bay. The first, second and third floors are predominantly open-plan work space with some meeting rooms and private offices. Original key aspects include the screening room and foyer, reception atrium and restaurant. Other areas have been reconfigured, particularly the flooring-over of the studio, reconfiguration of editing suites and removal of perimeter office rows.

The building's principal façade addresses the Horseferry Road and Chadwick Street junction. The office wing ends are pulled back from the corner, with the piazza framed by a High-tech composition of glass and graphite-coloured steel, aluminium and cladding panels punctuated by vertical flashes of red-painted structural steelwork. The full-height concave structural glass wall of the atrium occupies the centre, suspended from above by steel frame. Radiused stair towers flank it on either side, with bands of glazing following the stair line interrupted minimally by vertical supports, as cladding is suspended internally on rods hung from above. To the left stands a stack of conference rooms with glazed end walls, elevated on a red pin-jointed steel frame. To the right is a stack of glazed lift lobbies serving three external wall-climber lifts running along red steelwork, with boxed-out service elements and a quasi-Constructivist transmission tower above creating strong vertical emphasis. Boiler flues add further interest to the roofline.

The piazza features shallow steps and flanking ramps leading to a circular space before the building. At its centre is a circular skylight illuminating the screening room foyer below; a glass-canopied bridge spans it to a pair of revolving entrance doors. The sculpture 'the big 4' stands towards the piazza's front edge.

The office wings are clad with glazed powder-coated aluminium panels. At ground floor these are set back behind exposed concrete posts of the frame, while above they jet out slightly, meeting at corners with narrow fully-glazed vertical units. Each panel contains four rebated horizontal glazed units divided by a fin-like transom; the lowest unit bears a band of sunscreen steel mesh. Floor plates are faced with panelled steel units. Components meet with narrow shadow gaps, creating the effect of a modelled grid with horizontal emphasis. Rear elevations to both office wings and the convexly curved knuckle follow this aesthetic.

The atrium forms the principal public interior space. The curved full-height glazed wall is held in tension by complex steel cabling and suspended from above by exposed red steelwork. Set back and above the ground-floor reception are curved cantilevered walkways at each floor, open to the atrium and floored in concrete panels set with circular glass blocks; offices behind are enclosed by glazed walls.

Behind reception at a slightly lower level sits the staff restaurant, refurbished multiple times but retaining its distinctive fan shape, exposed concrete ceiling and glazed walls overlooking the terrace.

The screening room beneath the piazza contains a fan-shaped auditorium and circular foyer, both refurbished while retaining perforated steel acoustic panelling and exposed concrete structural elements. Anti-room walls are hung with chain curtain and lit from above by the circular piazza skylight held in a steel umbrella-like structure. A concrete stair with steel balustrade connects the foyer to the atrium above.

The four tower stairs are dog-legged with red finish and stainless steel tubular balustrades; treads and risers are of folded steel supported at half landings by flanged I-beam newels.

Throughout the remainder of the building, smooth round concrete posts and other concrete structural elements remain visible, though spaces have been reconfigured and refurbished to suit operational needs.