London's palace of retailing

Where might you eat a plate of oysters, leaf through gardening books, try on Gucci or Armani clothes and designer jewellery, and finger silk ties and David Clulow specs? Where could you think about buying something outrageous, do the weekly shop or just sip a lazy coffee overlooking the accessories hall?

No, not Posh and Becks' Sawbridgeworth mansion, nor Harrods, but Selfridges in Oxford Street. You can't get a seat in the wine bar most weekends because while the women folk wander through five floors of luxurious distractions, their fellas sample bottles of decent Chablis for £10!

"We were keen to work with Selfridges. It was spending more than £100m on refurbishment work over a 12-year period," says Christian Papa, director of architect and interior designer Hosker Moore Kent Melia (HMKM).

"Chief executive Vittorio Radici had a flair for discovering and appointing young interior designers to do the fit out. We thought we stood a chance of winning some work. Reputations meant nothing to him if you did not have talent," says Papa.

After sending in its portfolio, HMKM was asked to a meeting with Radici. "He was aware of the work we had done for Harvey Nichols and Boots The Chemist and said that at Selfridges there was a lot of work still to do and would we like to do some of it?" says Papa, who was pleasantly surprised at the speed with which the firm was appointed.

"We were given the third floor 'intimate apparel' area to design - the lingerie department in other words - plus the prestigious accessories hall and mezzanine caf' on the ground floor," he adds. The deal was worth about £3m, both contracts were to run in parallel and work had to start on site in February 2001 and end by mid-September. The completion date was critical because the new season collections would arrive in the store by the end of September ready for the build up to the Christmas period when turnover doubles.

The area concerned, which amounted to 1,480m2 on the ground floor and 285m2 in the mezzanine, had been refurbished some years ago. A mechanical plant room had been built into a void created by lowering the ceiling in the eastern corner of the floor. It was a cramped, dimly lit area with yellowing plasterwork.

"Over the years the various fashion concessions had built booths and display cases around the base of the support columns, cluttering up the openness and visual clarity of the space," says Papa.

"The self-service restaurant on the mezzanine, though highly successful, was an oppressive place. As you came into Selfridges from the Duke Street entrance, you were greeted with the smell of batter and fried food. It was more like a BhS canteen and not the image that the new Selfridges wished to identify with."

The overall philosophy was to recreate the grandeur of the original hall by removing all the clutter around the column bases, clearing and widening the aisles and brightening the ceilings. A completely new floor layout for the fashion brand concessions was planned and designs drawn up for accessory counters and displays. The mezzanine restaurant was demolished.

The fashion brand concession - Prada, Burberry, Gucci, Fendi, et al - were allocated spaces within the masterplan to do their own fit out. In all other circumstances HMKM designed every display unit, wall panel, glass counter, floor covering and light fitting.

The firm also created: deep chocolate-coloured fumigated oak flooring; a scarf 'mirror' wall; coloured murals for the restaurant wall; and a fabulous back-lit, laser-cut, stainless steel bottle rack. Other details in its brief included furniture for the new caf' and a striking orange and red, curved booth for the David Clulow spectacles collection.

"The full length of the columns now visible in the hall and the additional lighting to the ceiling adds greatly to the expansive calmness of the accessories hall," says Papa. "We chose all the colours and materials carefully."

It was not a question of covering everything in white paint - that would look too stark. The soft apple-coloured display units, leather seating in the restaurant, pink and red graphic layout for the handbag display, and even the white carrara marble floor had to reinforce the feeling that this was a feminine area, designed to intrigue and entice.

"We were working to a brief that divided the floor area into four discreet sale zones - eternal, seasonal, fashion and contemporary. We had to design the interior to reflect and harmonise these subtle mood changes," says Papa.

In the eternal zone you can buy handbags, scarves, gloves, pashmenas and other everyday accessories - the staple items of the store. The seasonal zone covers winter and summer items, and sports. The fashion zone is where the branded concessions have their display units. The contemporary zone is full of outrageous products for impulse buying - a baby chair covered in leather and goats skin, a brilliant green Gucci skateboard - all housed in stainless steel display cubes to grab and hold your attention.

A key element of the fit out was the considerable enabling work. This includes: new fire escapes and the closing off of others; re-casing the columns with fluted glass reinforced gypsum mouldings right down to the base plinth; and relocating the mechanical plant to raise the ceiling height in the east corner. The integrity of the 1909 listed structure had to be surveyed, not least to assess the strength of the first floor plated beams and columns from which the new mezzanine floor was to be suspended.

Jim Paterson of structural engineer Robert Benaim and Associates says: "The architect did not want to tie the mezzanine floor back to the ground floor columns. They wanted a floor that made minimal contact with the fabric of the original structure.

"That meant suspending the restaurant from the first floor along the leading edge of the slab."

Paterson recalls that the instinctive reaction of the client, when walking up to the new caf' for the first time, was to enquire politely whether it was safe! The thought of everything hanging from just a few slim stainless steel rods can make you feel a little uneasy.



In fact it's a brilliantly engineered structure that has been crafted to appear pencil-thin by using lighting effects and glass balustrading. To carry the additional floor load, the first floor support beams were strengthened in bending by welding additional flange plates and the beam-column connections at first floor level were beefed up to sustain the additional point loads.

"We specified a lightweight concrete topping to reduce the dead weight of the 130mm composite metal deck floor and chose UC sections for the beam to minimise the overall construction depth," says Paterson. "The composite floor is supported by 203mm-deep UC secondary beams at 2.5m centres, which span between the main 254mm-deep UC beams that run in a north-south direction and follow the 6m grid of the building."

The mezzanine floor is approximately 24m long and varies from 7.5m at the eastern end to 12m at the other. It can accommodate 150 people seated. The 12m-wide section of the mezzanine slab, which overhangs the glove and scarf display area on the ground floor, not only reduces the ceiling height to 2.5m but puts it in shadow. To overcome this there is a large opening at the back of the slab to create a light well from caf' level and a huge faceted mirror wall above the scarf display to brighten the back space.

Breaking out and demolishing the original mezzanine floor was quite an operation.

"We had 20 men working through the night from 8pm to 7am for nearly four weeks just to break out the 250mm deep concrete slab and expose the structural steel work," says Andy Summers, associate director of Withey Contracts, whose company carried out all the refurbishment and fit out work.

Everything had to be done by hand using compressed air tools, then bagged up to avoid any debris or dust contaminating the merchandise in the store. "We barrowed the concrete debris through the Duke Street entrance and dumped it into a roll-on roll-off skip, which we filled up every night," says Summers.

A steelwork subcontractor came in for a week to burn the primary and secondary steelwork beams into 500mm-long segments, which were winched down to the ground floor and trollied to the skip. "We came to an understanding with the skip hire firm. They reclaimed the steel salvage and we paid no skip hire costs," he says.

The entire work area was encapsulated with hoarding and plastic sheeting to prevent dust from escaping into the store

The new mezzanine structure was supported on scaffolding until the concrete floor was cast, all the hangers installed and the primary beams connected to the first floor columns at the back of the slab or tied into the load bearing walls on the sides. The 40mm solid stainless steel rods were suspended from the first floor double beams by thick steel plates welded to the underside of each beam. A box section, 200mm by 100mm, was created by welding cleats between the thick steel plates.



Paterson says: "This allowed the rod to be pushed up from below into the opening and adjusted for alignment using thick, slotted plates that slide over the rod from two sides to form the bearing cradle for the locknut and washer that secures it.

"We carried out a fire engineering assessment to prove that the bare stainless hangers had a one-hour fire rating. The couplers and connection, however, had to be recessed into the floor and sprayed with fire protection."

The connection to the new steel beam at mezzanine level was a more conventional arrangement using a 90mm CHS section welded into a hole cut through the flanges and web of the main beam. The hanger rod was sleeved through the CHS opening before bolting it tight. The concrete was pumped in place from a mobile pump parked in Duke Street through a pipeline running from the street to the floor slab.

The staircase leading up to the mezzanine caf' - now called the Gallery Caf' - is a pure spiral structure with continuously welded steel stringers to reduce any twist and distortion.

"The walkway extends 4m from the edge of the floor to the top of the spiral staircase. We made the connection between the walkway and the slab monolithic and designed the walkway as a stiff beam to minimise lateral sway. We wanted the stairs and landing to feel solid," says Paterson.

The walkway is supported on two pairs of 25mm-diameter stainless steel rods suspended from the first floor. A glass balustrade, which features a stainless steel handrail bonded to the top of the glass, frames the walkway, spiral stairs and leading edge of the mezzanine caf'.

Selfridges is a real shopping event. It is an education in good taste, with smart merchandising that caters for fabulous luxury, as well as the necessities of everyday life. Vittorio Radici's changes to the store in the past decade have been an inspiration. The dazzle of the new accessories hall and chic of the Gallery Caf' is irresistible. A coffee will only set you back a couple of pounds. Try it.