Heinz’s old London headquarters are being turned into a massive housing complex

Want to live in the old Heinz headquarters? We can’t promise there will be any lifetime supplies of baked beans or ketchup, but you will be living in a little part of London’s history. The former Heinz HQ in Hayes in being converted into sustainable housing. 

UK architecture firm Studio Egret West has been granted planning permission to turn the 1960s buildings that used to house Heinz into 124 flats, while preserving their brutalist concrete frames. Eat your heart out, Barbican.

The two Grade II-listed concrete buildings, originally designed by US architect Gordon Bunshaft, were once used as offices and laboratories by Heinz – who knows which recipes were developed there. Soon, they’ll be turned into homes ranging from studios to three-bedroom apartments.

Hayes Park Central and Hayes Park South’s renovations will aim to preserve as much of the original building as possible, and a reflective pool that was once in the central courtyard will even be restored. Outside, the architects plan to rewild the surrounding grassland, increasing biodiversity and bringing a more nature-y feel to the housing development. 

Here are a couple of renders of what the refurbed Heinz headquarters will look like.

‘The embodied carbon of the building will be saved and the structure is given a second life as high-quality homes within a unique setting,’ Studio Egret West associate director Gemma Noakes told Dezeen.

‘The building's iconic form and sculptural facade, designed by the noted American corporate architect Gordon Bunshaft for SOM, will be saved for future generations to enjoy.’

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