Macklin Street

Smart Home Automation | Smart Electronic Curtains | Smart Audio | Smart Security

The impressive volume of historic warehouse space in this central London location was cleverly redesigned to provide a unique central living area. Large interior dimensions with brick external walls required Cornflake’s authority and skilled understanding to minimize the impact on this unusual house.

Architects and Interior Designers

Lighting designers

The Brief

The new owners of this extraordinary architect-designed townhouse, built inside a former warehouse, appointed Lees Associates to undertake a full refurbishment and update to the Grade II Listed property. Cornflake was commissioned to handle all the home automation, smart security and smart audio-visual elements that included some challenging aspects, including the installation of best-in-class speakers for entertaining, the creation of a ‘floating’ media room, and the design and fit of the longest motorised curtains we have ever installed.

The Project

The original 13,000sq. ft space was originally a set-building workshop in the 1960’s serving the Royal Opera House, later becoming a costume storage warehouse for Sir Cameron Mackintosh. It was sold and converted to residential use in the 1990’s, with planning permission granted as a single residence. The then owner hired architects Paxton Lochler to create a property within a property. They designed and built a contemporary four-storey townhouse with windows and balconies inside the original converted brick warehouse as an eight-bedroom home with a roof garden, all accessed by stairs. The open area within the warehouse features triple-height windows allowing natural light to flood in by day and it is used as an exhibition space and for holding live music events, such is the extent of the building. In addition, there is a basement garage for five cars with a swimming pool and sauna.

When new owners purchased this unusual property, they wanted to update and refurbish it and to incorporate newer audio-visual solutions inside the original warehouse area and inside the townhouse. The interior layout was reconfigured to include a floating media room, and, in order to preserve their artworks and to maintain privacy, the owners required floor to ceiling motorised curtains hanging from the warehouse walls…

For this project, we installed a WiFi and data network with a fibre ISP infrastructure and design. We also developed a personalised Cornflake app with an easy-to-use graphic user interface that was custom-designed for this property, where all automated aspects can be controlled and adjusted within the home using fixed or roaming iPads, or remotely via a smartphone or tablet.

Smart Electronic Curtains

Using Lutron as the control system for the 7.5 metre (25 ft.) sheer floor–to-ceiling curtains that our clients had specified, our challenge was to house the huge motor, which we successfully achieved. Due to the length of drop, these curtains would be very difficult to open and close manually. With our smart system, the curtains’ mechanisms can be activated simultaneously at the touch of the controls using the Cornflake app, personalised for the property.

Smart Security

Custom-designed to incorporate the property’s 2N door entry system, we also installed CCTV with remote monitoring. This covers both the secure gate entry and the front door to the property with Client network Security by Cisco Meraki.

Smart Audio

For the main exhibition, live music and entertainment space, together with the townhouse interior, we had to carefully consider the available speaker options because we were not able to compromise the fabric of the buildings. We specified in-wall speakers by James Loudspeaker that were housed external to the brickwork using a metal tube conduit and a special sealed speaker enclosure. Because they were connected to open shelving, isolating audio vibration from the rest of the shelves was critical, and achieved. Our client was thrilled by the result. Inside the home, we provided further audio solutions on a room-by-room basis, including architectural invisible speaker solutions by Sonance, together with Studio Grade architectural speakers by Dynaudio and Audiophile architectural speakers by Monitor Audio Platinum with an Audiophile HiFi Amplifier by Musical Fidelity. The result is a home with perfect integrated audio solutions, whether dining at the kitchen table or hosting an event with a live band playing.