Client: OCS
Location: London
Value: Office - £11,600,000, Gatehouse - £650,000

OCS South Side

OCS is one of the largest property support services provider in the UK, and 44 South Side acts as the Company’s main south London operational centre.

Following the completion of feasibility studies, the Company decided to demolish three buildings and the construct a 6350 sqm office building plus a separate Gatehouse.

The Gatehouse building monitors the entrance to the site from Clapham Common South Side. It serves as security checkpoint and interview facility.

This single storey building has a central corridor running along an oversized spine wall containing clerestorey windows, and full height glazing at each end. The service spaces are constructed as a masonry block with a flat roof, whilst the office spaces are faced in render, timber and glass with a shallow pitched roof faced in zinc. The ceiling follows the roof line to create a dynamic interior.

The site slopes from north to south which the Office building utilizes to reduce its apparent mass. The entrance to the Office building is three storeys tall, but becomes four storeys on its south side whilst maintaining the same parapet line. The resulting undercroft is used for parking and storage. The roofs are flat to use for ease of access to plant equipment and for the mounting of photovoltaic panels.

The building has been broken up into four main blocks clad in terracotta rainscreen cladding and joined by links clad in timber and glass.
This reduces the overall mass of the development, creating steps in the plan which permits the building to follow the boundary line on each side.