Architecture Today Awards
Mixed Use Finalist
City Heritage Awards
Project Award Winner
City of London Awards
Special Livery Prize
RIBA Awards
London Winner
Salters’ Hall is an open, confidently working building that balances ceremony, commerce and civic life. A new entrance pavilion creates a clear and welcoming arrival, reconnecting the Hall to London Wall and surrounding pedestrian routes. Subtle extensions increase office floorspace by 42%, securing long-term commercial viability alongside restored ceremonial spaces. A renewed hall, offices and gardens support day-to-day work, events and public engagement, underpinned by major fabric and services upgrades that dramatically improve performance. The completed project has received both a RIBA Award and a City Heritage Award.
- Location
- City of London, London
- Size
- 60,000 sqft
- Client
- The Worshipful Company of Salters
Designed by Basil Spence and completed in 1976, Salters’ Hall is the ceremonial home of one of the City of London’s ancient livery companies. By the early 2000s, however, its inward-facing layout, deteriorating fabric and poor environmental performance threatened its long-term future. Appointed in 2006, dMFK was asked to improve income-generating potential, radically enhance sustainability and make the building more accessible and outward-facing, while respecting its architectural and cultural significance.
While demolition was explored as an option early on, a shared vision emerged around careful adaptation. dMFK developed proposals demonstrating how faithful restoration of ceremonial spaces, combined with discreet extensions, could increase lettable office space and secure long-term financial sustainability. At the same time, the project sought to better engage with its surroundings, strengthen the Hall’s civic presence and ensure it could continue to support the Salters’ charitable and educational activities for generations to come.
Before and After
The retrofit combined careful restoration with precise contemporary intervention. Ceremonial interiors were renewed, while comprehensive upgrades to façades, services and lifts improved comfort, efficiency and long-term performance. Subtle extensions to the north and south elevations increased floorspace by 42% without disrupting Spence’s original form. The new entrance pavilion was designed to feel modern yet rooted in the Hall’s heritage, its aluminium finned shading echoing the scale and rhythm of the ceremonial wood panelling.
On site
Textures and Details at Salters' Hall
Reorienting the Hall towards new pedestrian routes required close coordination with neighbouring developments and complex technical solutions, including cantilevering the entrance pavilion over an unbuilt basement. Gardens and terraces were opened up and better connected, while a once-private garden became a publicly accessible green space. Alongside this spatial reconfiguration, extensive environmental upgrades transformed performance – achieving BREEAM Excellent and improving the EPC from F to B – ensuring the Hall operates efficiently, comfortably and sustainably for the future.
‘London is a city of marvellous layers, and few places have as much strata as the Salters’ Hall in the Square Mile. More layers are now being added with the hall’s remodelling by dMFK Architects and the still emerging London Wall Place office complex that is pushing the surroundings of Salters’ Hall ever higher; layers above, layers below’.
Rob Bevan, Evening Standard
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