Associated Steel Window Services (ASWS) has won the Refurbishment Project of the Year category at the Steel Window Association Awards 2025 for the Dover Street project in Central London.
35 Dover Street is connected to the adjacent 15 Berkeley Street via the basement levels. The two buildings were historically home to the exclusive women-only Empress Club, inaugurated by Queen Victoria, purpose-built for the opening of the club in 1887 and marking a new era in the history of Ladies’ Clubs. Over 100 years later, 35 Dover Street has most recently been multi-let to office and luxury retail tenants, and the fit- out saw the repositioning of the building to create a workspace for today’s commercial market. The building has been renamed Empress, a nod to its noble history.
The project
ASWS was approached directly by Collins Construction to tender for the ‘light touch refurbishment scope’ to the original steel windows. Upon inspection and prior to costing the project, it was obvious that the windows were original to the 1897 build; blacksmith windows which were fabricated using lengths of T, U, I and flat section. These would have been welded together to create what are now called window sections.
The project itself appeared relatively small with just 36 windows but some of these were made of up of 18 faceted individual window sections, which meant the work required was quite considerable. With the windows fitted into stone internally and externally, the client’s preference was not to remove the windows due to concerns over potential damage to the stone. ASWS was tasked with removing all the lead-based paint from the windows using a chemical poultice removal system. This enabled a clean new finish to these 125-year old windows. Chemical poultice removal can be extremely challenging and some of the floors had considerably more paint than others. ASWS had to apply, remove and reapply the poultice up to seven times in some areas.
The use of lead paint was banned 30 years ago on health grounds, which means its presence is almost always masked by later coats of modern gloss paint; but trying to remove the build up by sanding or heat risks exposing workers to inhaling the harmful heavy metal. ASWS offers other methods of paint removal, but chemical stripping was the best option for Dover Street, to take the frames back to bare metal for repairs to commence.
At Dover Street, the team at ASWS applied between three and seven coats of the epoxy paste to the windows. Not only is the paint retained within the ‘poultice’, but the lead is neutralised and converted into a manageable form, which is bagged and removed by an approved waste management company.
They were then asked to provide a full redecoration of the frames including as full rust treatment; provided using the company’s five-coat system of hand painting by in-house decorators who have been specialising in the decoration of steel windows for in excess of 25 years. The windows were decorated in dual colour, with the windows white internally and black externally.
The actual repairs involved replacing broken hinges and some corroded frame sections and the overhaul and the fitting of new single glazing into the very shallow, 3mm upstands. This meant that every pane of glass had to be measured in three places in height and width to make sure the glass was the correct size. The team even hand cut some panes of glass to varying sizes in height and width to get the coverage on the upstands.
Intricate repairs with refurbishment of the ironmongery was also undertaken. Much of the ironmongery across the four floors was still the original ‘blacksmith ironmongery’ as well as modern interpretations of steel window ironmongery that had been poorly fitted. ASWS reused all of the ironmongery that was original, consolidating it to certain floors so the windows have a sense of continuity, and then they used a stock of heritage ironmongery to fulfil the remaining floors with ironmongery much more in keeping with the history and heritage of the building. All brass ironmongery and bracketry were stripped, burnished and lacquered. All other ironmongery was painted to match the windows.
The SWA Awards judge, John Ramshaw, said, “Formerly home to the exclusive women-only Empress Club, 35 Dover Street in London’s Mayfair has recently been converted into offices and retail units. ASWS’ meticulous approach to window refurbishment has paid dividends on this challenging and prestigious project. Its rigour and attention to detail has seen the building’s idiosyncratic turn-of the-century fenestration lovingly restored and preserved for future generations to enjoy. This has played a key role in the overall success of the scheme; the façade being dominated by large, beautifully proportioned bay windows. ASWS has also excelled in its sympathetic treatment of the ironmongery, further raising the bar of what is possible when a committed client and expert window refurbishment specialist work together. A convincing winner.”
Kris Bennell, Operations Director for ASWS, comments “I am so thrilled personally and we are so proud as a company to have won this award. The efforts of all of our team on this project really shone through for our client as well as to John Ramshaw. It was such a brilliant day on Friday celebrating this project, something we don’t always get to do in construction with the next job calling!”
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