Archinect - News

'Cheesegrater 2' skyscraper approved for City of London

2018-07-11T15:21:00-04:00

A 56-storey tower called The Diamond is set to join the growing cluster of skyscrapers in the City of London and will be the financial district’s third-tallest building when completed. The planned 263.4m tower at 100 Leadenhall Street will rank behind 1 Undershaft at 290m, nicknamed the Trellis, where work is yet to start, and 22 Bishopsgate, the reworked Pinnacle at 278m, which is under construction.

Image: The Diamond.

The City of London's third-tallest building has just received planning permission, and it will be somewhat of a déjà vu: the SOM-designed, wedge-shaped 56-story tower, officially called The Diamond, is going to sit right next to Richard Roger's Cheesegrater—London's OG wedge.

Reflecting on an era of architectural icons

2017-05-01T13:54:00-04:00

And still they come. The Gherkins, Shards, Walkie-Talkies, Cheesegraters, Scalpels, giant iPhones, Bird’s Nest stadiums, flying tabletops, big pants. Like the conveyor belt of consumer items that older readers will remember in Bruce Forsyth’s Generation Game, the supply of funny-looking buildings with funny names seems never-ending. Nicknames are converted into brands; satire and marketing merge.

There has been an era of architectural invention like few others, combined with a sense of hollowness, the feeling of not knowing what it’s all for.

London's Cheesegrater sells for £1.15B—the second-biggest sale ever of a building in the UK

2017-03-07T12:32:00-05:00

The Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners-designed Leadenhall Building, more commonly known as the ‘Cheesegrater’, was sold to a Chinese property tycoon for £1.15B—the second-biggest sale ever of a building in the UK. The tallest building in the City of London, the Cheesegrater was previously owned by the developer of the building, British Land, and its joint venture partner Oxford Properties.

The sale marks one of the largest purchases of UK property by a Chinese company and is the largest sale in the country since 2014. When the building was completed that year, it had the highest rents of any building in the City.

Tim Roberts, head of offices at British Land, stated “This sale shows continued investor appetite for best-in-class, well-located property in London.” Others, however, might find the sale indicative of the increasing unaffordability of the capital city, which has witnessed a major boom in large, expensive towers.

The sky is falling! Weekly News Round-Up for January 12, 2015

2015-01-19T18:05:00-05:00

Friday, January 16:

Architecture for Humanity to shut down: The San Francisco HQ has laid off all employees and will file for bankruptcy, however it's unclear how this will affect operations of the many national/international AfH outposts that function through volunteers.
Work at Manhattan's 432 Park Ave tower ordered to stop after pipe falls from 81st floor: The latest in a recent series of similar incidents, including a bolt falling from London's cheesegrater, falling art in Mons, the 2015 European Capital of Culture, and concrete panels dropping from Zaha Hadid's library in Vienna.

Thursday, January 15:

Norm's Coffee Shop, an LA Googie icon, is temporarily saved from demolition: Along with the first Taco Bell being in peril of demolition, part of southern California's architectural heritage is being considered.

Wednesday, January 14:

Jean Nouvel boycotts opening of his Philharmonie de Paris: Despite the restaurant and exhibition space not being fully complete, Nouvel's Philharmonie hel...

Cheesegrater skyscraper loses another bolt – the third one in three months

2015-01-15T14:36:00-05:00

The owners of the 222-metre (734ft) “Cheesegrater” building, the second tallest building in the City of London, are to replace dozens of long bolts on its structure after it was revealed that another one had fractured. The bolts, among 3,000 on the building’s 15,000-tonne frame, are each just under a metre long. Two snapped in November, with some debris falling to the ground from the fifth floor. Nobody was hurt, but an area below the tower is still cordoned off.

Previously: Bolt part falls off Cheesegrater skyscraper in the City of London

Bolt part falls off Cheesegrater skyscraper in the City of London

2014-11-06T13:41:00-05:00

No-one was injured but an area around the 47-storey Leadenhall Building in the city has been cordoned off. It fell from the fifth floor to the ground at the side of the building - another bolt also broke off but was contained within the skyscraper. It is understood the bolts are about the size of an arm and the piece that fell was about the size of a hand.

The Cheesegrater – a tower of no small ambition

2014-08-25T13:40:00-04:00

Someone has told the bouncers to be nice. It is now standard for architectural anoraks like myself to find ourselves challenged by smile-less security as we go about our blameless business – no loitering, no photography, no looking, as if al-Qaida scouts would do their dastardly work in this way or as if, years after the invention of the camera phone, photography can be controlled as it could in the age of the tripod. But not at the base of the Cheesegrater.