The Ned Hotel
Pace Consult in its role as a partner of Ardmore Construction oversaw many of the acoustic aspects of this the major refurbishment of the Grade I-listed former Midland Bank Headquarters into the magnificent Ned hotel and club. It is understood to be one of London’s most ambitious hotel launches in recent times. We worked with the main contractor to turn the vast, early 20th-century building into one of London’s standout new hotels.
Acoustic design consultants
Originally designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1929, and completed in 1939, the listed former Midland Bank Headquarters in the City of London is renowned as one of the Capitalâ’s most iconic buildings. Today, the Ned is an incredibly successful 252-bedroom 5-star hotel providing an extensive food, beverage and amenity offer with nine restaurants, two swimming pools, a health spa and gym, meeting and event spaces and a private members’ club.
The main entrance from Poultry opens into the Grade I-listed grand banking hall, which is sandwiched between the original safety deposit vaults in the basement and the listed directors’ offices and meeting rooms above.
As part of the development, we have carried out internal acoustic consultancy within the hotel, on bedrooms, fan coil units and finishes. We have also assessed the project phases from demolition to construction in terms of construction noise emission to a highly sensitive receptor to the rear of the project, The Grocers Hall.
As major structural alterations were part of the project, external noise was considered a key consideration. Using our industry-standard software SoundPlan, we used the machinery and operating times proposed for the various phases of the project to model the predicted noise emission from the site.
Once complete we installed our remote noise and vibration logging stations at the site and set up alarm criteria which, when exceeded, would notify the site team and ourselves. Exceedances were then investigated and the use of quieter construction techniques was discussed and deployed on-site. The remote monitoring system was a Svantek system that was set up with 6 email addresses to inform the site team of particular noise and vibration events on-site.
“The beautiful existing rooms have kept their original glamour throughout this project, exemplifying a restrained approach in adding new elements. The results are upscale, high-end and plush, exactly what is expected of an events space.”
The project has been extremely well received:
AHEAD Awards, 2017
Best In Class
Winner: RIBA London Regional Awards 2019 and RIBA London Project Architect of the Year Award 2019
