St James’s Place East

The proposal delivers a high-quality mixed-use development across two adjoining sites to the rear of Mount Street Upper, fronting James Place East. The scheme is informed by a conservation-led approach that seeks meaningful heritage gain, addressing the incremental erosion of historic character while restoring architectural legibility and delivering a development of appropriate scale and urban presence.

A central ambition of the project is the repair of the historic plot structure that once defined this part of the city. The reinstatement of Georgian garden plots and plot lines provides the organising framework for spatial arrangement, massing and access, ensuring the new buildings are grounded in the underlying logic of the place. This approach allows the scheme to participate in the established urban order rather than compete with it.

The proposal mediates between contrasting scales: the domestic terrace along Mount Street Upper, the substantial mass of the 10-storey Miesian Plaza, and the contemporary interventions of the ESB Headquarters and Connaught House. Height and volume are carefully stepped to create a graduated transition across the block, resulting in a more balanced and coherent townscape.

Surface car parking within the amalgamated rear plots is replaced with planted garden spaces, improving outlook, biodiversity and amenity for occupiers and contributing positively to the wider setting.