Soho is packed into the square between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road, with Soho Square at its northern edge and Chinatown along its southern fringe. Its buildings stand on narrow plots, many dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with restaurants, bars or shops at ground level and offices, studios or flats above. Rear yards are small or built over entirely, and rooftops are already busy with kitchen extract, old condensers and water tanks.
Behind the nightlife, Soho remains the centre of London's film, television and post-production industry, concentrated around Wardour Street, Dean Street and Soho Square. Machine rooms, grading suites and edit bays run long hours and produce a great deal of heat in small rooms, so cooling is a production requirement rather than a comfort. Agencies, record labels and independent shops fill many of the smaller buildings, and Carnaby Street and Berwick Street add retail and market trade.
Soho also has a resident population that has lived alongside the venues for generations, in flats over shops and in housing association buildings. Because bars and restaurants trade late, plant may run when background noise finally drops and residents are trying to sleep. Effective air conditioning in Soho means fitting the right capacity into very little space, keeping noise firmly under control at night, and leaving equipment accessible enough to maintain.
