Southgate House

We were appointed by Rave Coffee to refurbish a long-abandoned but rather interesting factory in Cirencester as their new headquarters building. The building was probably designed by Anthony Hunt Structural Engineers in the 1960’s; it has many features redolent of James Stirling’s History Faculty building in Cambridge, not least a brightly coloured steel frame, single glazed patent glazing and a large circular window…

The project retained all these features, albeit replacing the single glazing of the patent glazing with double glazed units and factory finishing the external aluminium bars. The steel frame changed from bright red to bright yellow, with an overall colour scheme of bright yellow, dark grey and white reflect the company branding.

Part of the ground floor was converted into a café, an integral part of the Rave organisation, with offices at first floor level. An essential element of the company ethos is transparency and the patent glazing on the street elevation was the initial draw to the building for this reason. Internal glazed screens between the ground floor café and first floor office areas with the production areas reinforce this ethos.

The business imports coffee beans from around the world and has thus far installed 2 large american stainless steel coffee roasters at the front of the production area. The processed beans are then packaged and posted to online customers.

The refurbishment included thermal insulation to external walls and roofs, replacement of roof coverings, refinishing external cladding and render, diamond grinding the ground floor slab to create a working floor finish, complete renewal of services and internal finishes with internal fittings designed by the in-house marketing department.

Photo-voltaic panels will be installed on the roof in a subsequent phase of work.

See https://ravecoffee.co.uk/