DMA wins planning consent for Kensington student accommodation

Dexter Moren Associates (DMA) has achieved planning permission for the refurbishment and extension of 19th century More House in Kensington, London, to provide contemporary student accommodation.

Situated at 51-55 Cromwell Road, close to the art and museum centre of London, More House is named after St Thomas More and has welcomed students between 1952 and 2020. The 38,000sq ft building was vacant when bought by SAV Group, who specialise in refurbishing and repositioning complicated sites into income-generating residential properties.

Read the full story in this exclusive by PBSA News HERE

Sustainability has formed a major part of DMA’s design, with every effort made to retain as much of the existing structure as possible in order to limit the embodied carbon emissions of the project. Located in the Queens Gate Conservation Area, DMA’s design team has collaborated closely with heritage consultant Montagu Evans to ensure the proposal remains in line with the character of the conservation area, whilst successfully reconfiguring the internal layout to provide as much accommodation as possible within the constraints of the existing building envelope.

Mark Wood, Partner at DMA, says: “With this project, we needed to achieve a lot within the 19th century fabric; upgrading and extending the accommodation to meet the needs of 21st century students whilst maintaining the building’s heritage values by returning it, where possible, to its original appearance. We have been able to apply the skills honed across our varied portfolio, including hospitality refurbishments, to sympathetically enhance More House’s appearance, sustaining the life of the building and making a positive contribution to the conservation area in which it stands.”

To request the full press release or for further information, please contact Zoe at Satellite MPR.