Kitchen worktops in Barbican

Yes. Chamberlin Powell and Bon designed the kitchens as compact service rooms, so the standard flat has a galley of roughly 2.2-3m against one wall with a fixed extract duct and, in many types, a serving hatch to the dining area. Because the estate is listed the layout largely stays as built, so most work is replacing tired tops with new stone cut to the original footprint, sometimes squaring off where a hatch has been closed up. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

1960s-70s Grade II listed concrete estate, terrace block flat, tower block flat and mews and podium-level maisonette. Base units from the seventies and eighties are often only 500mm deep, so a 600mm stone top overhangs at the front and the doors want checking against it. The units are often 1970s or 80s and only around 500mm deep, so a standard 600mm stone top overhangs at the front and the doors and drawer fronts need checking against it. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

There is no vehicle access to the podium at all - you park in one of the estate car parks below, then use a car park lift and walk the highwalks and internal corridors, which can be several hundred metres with multiple fire doors and level changes. Lift cars in the residential cores are small with low ceilings, so anything over about 2.2m has to be assessed against the specific core before you cut. The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. It sets what the day actually looks like.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Same batch, same run, same day. Do a full dry run of the route from car park lift to flat door before ordering, because the Barbican's walk-in is longer and more awkward than any staircase in the City.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. One datum for the whole room. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Plotted, not estimated. Material runs from £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines rather than rolled into one figure.

Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Decided before fabrication, not after. Tell us the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the day rather than found on it.