Read this article to understand:
- The history of Curtain House in east London
- How environmental improvements to the building could generate climate benefits and financial returns
- The social and biodiversity implications of the project
"Prowlers and idlers, costermongers, petty tradesmen, small clerks, milliners, stay-makers, shoe-binders, slop-workers, poor workers in a hundred highways and by-ways…"
This is how Charles Dickens described the residents of Shoreditch, east London, in the nineteenth century. The area has changed a lot since then. Nowadays, you are more likely to run into cortado-sipping creatives than stay-makers.
But at the heart of Shoreditch stands Curtain House, a splendid reminder of the Victorian era. Built in the 1880s as a furniture-makers’ warehouse, it has since served as a print workshop, textiles factory and even a music hall.
Over the years, this five-storey, Grade-II listed building has witnessed a torrent of change in the capital, from the Industrial Revolution to the Swinging Sixties to the “Big Bang” that transformed the financial services sector in the City of London, a mile to the south.
Today, it is undergoing a transformation of its own.
From brown to green
Curtain House was first converted into offices in the second half of the 20th century. But it remained a tired and draughty place. Hampered by poor insulation, poorly maintained single-glazed windows and a reliance on gas central heating, it was inefficient and costly for occupiers to run.
This presented an opportunity. In 2021, we bought the building, aiming to refurbish and develop it into best-in-class office space. This was the first investment made by our Climate Transition Real Assets strategy, which seeks to deliver attractive financial returns by investing in a way that is aligned with the climate transition.1
The strategy seeks to avoid carbon emissions through investments in renewables and other green infrastructure; reduce emissions through efforts to decarbonise real estate assets, such as Curtain House; and remove emissions through financing nature-based solutions, such as sustainable forestry projects; as well as to align our portfolio to the broader climate transition through investments in cutting-edge technologies.
Our objective with Curtain House is to turn this “brown” building “green”; we are targeting an upgrade of its Energy Performance Certificate rating from E (the lowest legal rating for a building let to tenants) to A. To this end, we are replacing the gas heating system with electric heat pumps and ensuring the building has the potential to be naturally ventilated through openable windows – reducing the need for air conditioning and mechanical ventilation systems – as well as retrofitting insulation and upgrading the windows. Solar panels will be installed on the roof and storage for rainwater harvesting provided in the basement.
We expect these changes to contribute to a reduction of 90 tonnes’ worth of annual carbon dioxide emissions – equivalent to 45 return flights from London to New York.2 Once the work is complete, Curtain House’s overall energy use should be almost half that of a typical UK office complex. That’s without taking into account the embodied emissions “saved” by renovating the building rather than building from scratch.
"A key climate benefit of the project is all the ‘embodied carbon’ that is saved and retained by ‘greening’ the existing building rather than tearing it down to build something new, which would be very carbon intensive in terms of materials and labour. All told, our work on Curtain House should save around 3,000 tonnes of CO2 compared with a new build."3
While making these interventions, we want to retain as much of the character of the historic structure as we can. For example, because Curtain House is listed, we are not simply ripping out the original Crittall windows and installing glazed uPvC replacements; we are painstakingly restoring or replacing them, like-for-like.
Commercial potential
We are not undertaking these renovations simply because we want to do the right thing on climate. In our view, delivering environmental improvements goes hand-in-hand with financial returns.
There is increasing appetite among occupiers for energy-efficient office buildings, both because they are cheaper to run and because they help tenants deliver on their own net-zero commitments.
Green, efficient office space is not widely available in east London, however. Land is scarce and heritage constraints mean it is difficult to raze existing buildings to make way for new developments. With companies increasingly keen to rent near Tech City – the area around Old Street station that hosts a growing cluster of cutting-edge technology firms – there is a supply/demand imbalance for the best offices.
We expect this dynamic to drive significant rental growth at Curtain House. The project involves the creation of large, open floorplates, which are desirable for modern companies but difficult to find in the existing east London office stock. Other amenities, such as a new roof garden for tenants, should act as a further draw.
Community
As well as the environmental and commercial dimensions of their work, investors in real assets should also take social impact into account. When approached in a way that is sensitive to the history of a place and needs of the local community, real estate developments can provide social benefits.
A needs assessment for the project highlighted a lack of job opportunities in the area, so we will be requiring our appointed main contractor to commit to employing local sub-contractors and apprentices where possible, creating jobs for local people.
We also partnered with The Land Collective (TLC), a London-based education charity looking for support for their careers programme titled “Black Girls in Property”, to deliver a site visit for local students. Recognising the students’ interest in architecture, the architect worked with us to organise an exhibition of the site’s computer-generated imagery (CGI), career talks from project team members and a site tour. A half-day workshop education outreach activity was delivered, engaging 15 students with the support of eight volunteers.
The needs assessment also pointed to a lack of green space in Shoreditch, so we are looking into how the roof terrace can be made available to local community groups that have an interest in gardening. The current terrace, with its bare expanses of brick and concrete, is inhospitable to wildlife. We want to change that. The new space will include productive gardens, comprising varied planting and nectar-rich flowers.
Building better
The Curtain House project seeks to combine financial, environmental and social objectives.
By accessing real assets, clients can take advantage of opportunities for long-term income and capital growth through the transition, while simultaneously future-proofing their portfolios and contributing to decarbonisation efforts.
"We focus on assets and sectors with solid fundamentals and clear net-zero alignment, and Curtain House is a great example. Climate is increasingly central to fundamentals, which will drive demand and support value in the medium to long term. And through investing in real estate in a climate transition-aligned manner, we can provide tangible environmental and social benefits."
This might all seem a long way from the London of horse-drawn carriages and industrial smog. But we like to think that, even in its new guise, Curtain House would still be instantly recognisable to the furniture-makers who walked through the doors in its Victorian heyday.
Renovated and redeveloped, this proud old building will represent a precious link between London’s history and tech-powered future.
