The opportunity

The eight floor headquarters for fashion company Monsoon Accessorize Ltd uses a highly complex roof system with exposed columns and trusses.

The operation

The overwhelming high-tech design of the roof uses butterfly shaped plated steel columns with roof trusses that incorporate an external plant room. Due to the complexity of the design the roof steel was the natural choice for the frame; it enabled a slimmer profile, which reflects the clean contemporary look and quality of the product sold within.

Because of the complex geometry the roof had to be built using zero tolerances and extensive amounts of temporary steelwork were required to enable us to erect this space-frame roof structure.

The roof trusses were too fragile to lift on their own so we designed a bespoke lifting frame to erect them.

The result

The result is a truly iconic building. The defining architectural features of the façade include glazing separated by yellow clad panels with diagonal cross-bracings behind them. A folding butterfly shaped roof joined to the structural diagrid, which creates the jagged roofline, tops the scheme. The diagonals of the main building also continue into the roof to become a defining feature.