The Hotel Russell is a Grade II* listed building – one of the highest heritage designations in England – clad in distinctive terracotta across multiple ornate façades, with an internal courtyard, a roofline of turrets and chimneys, and a position on one of Bloomsbury’s busiest junctions. The refurbishment encompassed full internal and external works, façade cleaning and repair, and the creation of a new roof garden.
The building’s scale and complexity presented immediate access problems. The internal courtyard could not accommodate scaffold legs, ruling out conventional grounded structures entirely. The perimeter works required a continuous public protection solution on a road carrying regular bus services — with no possibility of closing the carriageway.
Logistically, the building’s footprint made a single integrated access strategy unworkable. The volume of materials required across the full programme needed a solution that could be managed in two distinct operational halves, with access points at each end of the building.
