Archinect - News

City of London approves record-tying skyscraper design from Eric Parry Architects

2024-12-18T12:11:00-05:00

A challenger to The Shard’s title as the tallest skyscraper in the UK is moving forward with plans to construct a new building designed by Eric Parry Architects that will equal its record height of 309.6 meters (or 1,015.75 feet). The height is limited by aviation safety rules for the City of London, where the planned 1 Undershaft will soon begin construction towards an anticipated early-2030s completion.

As was first reported by The Guardian, "On completion, 1 Undershaft, which is being built on the site occupied by insurer Aviva’s former headquarters, will provide almost 13% of the office space required in the City of London to 2040."

Image: DBOX/Eric Parry Architects

UK Housing Secretary issues final go-ahead for Museum of London and Bastion House demolition

2024-05-21T16:05:00-04:00

The UK's Housing and Communities Secretary Michael Gove has approved the planned demolition of the Museum of London building and Bastion House near the Barbican. The go-ahead makes way for the revised Sheppard Robson and Diller Scofidio + Renfro-led scheme that would deliver a new office block to the site following the culmination of demolition work in 2033.

The decision marks the end of a tumultuous back-and-forth between preservationists and the planning authority. Many have criticized the demolition's carbon footprint, despite the design team's promise to reuse 90% of the materials on-site in the construction of the new building, prompting Gove to issue an Article 31 order last month before casting his final approval on May 17th.

Previously on Archinect: Diller Scofidio + Renfro/Sheppard Robson's London Centre for Music replacement inches closer after planners grant local approval

Barbican Quarter Action (or BQA), the main group leading its opposition, has said to Londonist that t...

Diller Scofidio + Renfro/Sheppard Robson's London Centre for Music replacement inches closer after planners grant local approval

2024-04-30T13:45:00-04:00

The revised Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Sheppard Robson-led scheme at the Barbican in Central London reportedly gained planning approvals from the City of London’s planning body. The news came last week (April 17th) after UK Housing and Communities Secretary Michael Gove remanded an Article 31 order calling on the local committee to pause its process in light of pushbacks against the planned demolition of the existing Bastion House and the former Museum of London that is an integral part of the scheme.

Previously on Archinect: Diller Scofidio + Renfro unveil designs for London Centre for Music replacement

Yahoo! Finance UK quoted a spokesperson from the group Barbican Quarter Actiorn as saying the demolition would be “injurious to the future of people and the planet,” adding, “We continue to believe that this great City can and should do better and that it should retain and adapt these fine buildings in line with its own policies on sustainable development.”

If approved by Gove’s o...

The City of London skyline is expected to add these eleven towers by 2030

2023-11-01T18:58:00-04:00

The City of London Corporation has revealed new images depicting the 2030 skyline of the Square Mile ahead of the completion of a planned cluster of tall buildings that are expected by the end of the decade.

The plans depicted include the 11-building ‘City Cluster’, which strategically closes an existing gap between Rafael Viñoly’s 20 Fenchurch Street (aka the “Walkie-Talkie" tower) and adjacent plots in the body's local plan. Other key areas of change included in the City Plan 2040 call for the construction of new pedestrian routes and public green space, added ground-level accommodations for retail, and a mix of education and cultural spaces.

“These new CGI images clearly illustrate the ever-changing nature of London's incredible skyline. It demonstrates that the City office is here to stay, and that the Square Mile's real estate sector is robust and thriving, despite wider economic concerns,” Chair of the Planning and Transportation Committee at the City of London Corporation, S...

City of London reveals shortlisted candidates for the redevelopment of the Barbican Centre

2022-01-11T17:26:00-05:00

One of the most important renewal projects in recent memory is a step closer to being realized in central London.

The city’s development corporation has officially revealed its competition shortlist of design partners for the highly-publicized Barbican Centre revamp.

Five teams were named to the list featuring a variety of international and local standouts that were tapped to compete for the chance to leave their mark on the capital and what is perhaps the country’s foremost example of Brutalism.

Adjaye Associates led the list in what would be an interesting follow-up to the firm's controversial UK Holocaust Memorial project currently nearing its start two-and-a-half miles away in Westminster. The firm’s bid is combined with assistance from Benetti Architects and PUP and joined on the list by another from BIG, aided by Avanti Architects and POoR Collective and one from DS+R, with McCloy + Muchemwa and Purcell as design partners. Two entries headlined by local firms round out the l...

The winners of Perkins & Will's 2021 Phil Freelon Design Competition have been announced

2021-06-09T14:39:00-04:00

Architects and designers from multiple Perkins&Will studios worldwide have developed design solutions to address how urban spaces, workplaces, and/or daily life may change in post-COVID London. As part of the firm’s annual Phil Freelon Design Competition, these proposals explore ways parts of London can be transformed into healthier, more sustainable, and inclusive places.

Previously on Archinect: Winners of the 2020 Philip Freelon Design Competition have been announced

Now in its 18th year, Perkins&Will’s annual internal design competition calls on staff to collaborate and engage in creating innovative design solutions to some of the world’s most pressing issues. The competition was launched in 2004 as the Design Leadership Council Design Competition and renamed in 2019 to honor the eponymous and late architect and Perkins&Will design director who championed design for humanity.

Previously on Archinect: Architect Phil Freelon Has Passed Away

For this year’s competition, design team...

Henning Larsen's first London project bets big on the future of work in a changing city

2021-06-08T13:11:00-04:00

Henning Larsen is making its first foray into London with a mix-used project a few short steps from Buckingham Palace.

The new building will sit atop a reimagined foyer space tying the 470,000 square foot office development to a market, full-service gym, garden terrace and retail establishments through a web of interconnected bicycling and pedestrian tracks that the three-firm team hopes will turn 105 Victoria into a vital public square in the heart of the West End by the end of the decade.

Renders by DBOX.

With a hand from KPF and Adamson Associates, Henning Larsen were able to put forth a bold design that actively seeks to improve the work-life balance of the building’s workers through the many amenities available on-site in a full rejection of the exodus from cities prognosticators have forecasted as the start of the pandemic gave rise to a remote work revolution.

Renders by DBOX.

“Our ambition for the project is to create an active urban destination in the heart of London, a pocke...

UK efforts to bring public sector contracts to Black architects are floundering

2020-07-08T15:40:00-04:00

Southwark council declared that its New Architect Design Services Framework was a “first-of-a-kind” attempt to engage with a new generation of diverse designers. As councillor Leo Pollak put it: “It is the framework some architects have been waiting for all their years.” It turns out that black architects will have to wait even longer.

Writing in The Guardian, architecture critic Oliver Wainwright highlights the long-standing barriers Black and other minority architects in the UK face with regards to attaining public building contracts. Wainwright finds that while the 2010 Equality Act compels localities to improve how public projects impact and support minority communities, a lack of demographic collection data has hampered efforts to diversify public projects in London to include the contributions of minority designers.

London to move city hall from Norman Foster-designed tower to Docklands site

2020-06-24T13:02:00-04:00

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced a plan to move London's city hall facilities from their current location within the Norman Foster-designed "glass gonad" building to the Wilkinson Eyre Architects-designed Crystal building in the city's Docklands district.

The Foster building is a privately-owned facility that costs the Greater London Authority, the regional government for London and surrounding boroughs, an estimated £11.1million per year to rent. The building's colloquial name was given to the facilities by former London Mayor Boris Johnson, who is now Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The move comes as the London struggles to pay for essential services, including public transportation and firefighting services, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Regarding the move, Khan tells The Huffington Post, “My first priority will always be to protect funding for front-line services, including public transport, the Met Police and the London Fire Brigade,” adding, “Leaving ...

KPF moves forward with office adaptive reuse project in London

2020-06-23T13:39:00-04:00

An adaptive reuse project designed by global architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) that would retrofit an existing 1980s office block in London is moving forward following approval from the City of London Planning & Transportation Committee.

The project, located at 81 Newgate Street, includes a "deep retrofit" of the existing structure that will reposition the building as a "sustainable, mixed-use building that is embedded in the wider public life of the City as a new gateway destination into London’s ‘Culture Mile,'" the architects write.

In a press release announcing the project, John Bushell, Design KPF Principal explains, “81 Newgate Street develops a number of reuse and transformation themes that KPF has been working on for a long time, from the World Bank in Washington DC, completed in 1996, to more recent projects in London, such as Unilever House, South Bank Tower and a collection of projects in Covent Garden." Bushell adds, "The mixture of reuse and invention generates ...

London to regulate wind design for new skyscrapers

2019-08-20T09:00:00-04:00

Tougher building rules for skyscrapers have been drawn up by the City of London because of concerns that a high-rise, urban microclimate will generate winds capable of knocking over cyclists and pedestrians. Developers will have to provide more comprehensive safety assessments of how proposed buildings will affect people on street level, with more robust testing of roadways and pavements using detailed scale models in wind tunnels and computer simulations.

After a series of high-profile skyscraper design controversies, including documented incidents of pedestrians being knocked off their feet and cyclists being pushed sideways into the path of vehicles due to strong skyscraper-generated winds, London is moving to regulate the wind-driven impacts of new high-rise towers in the city.

Moving forward, the city will require tower projects to meet a tougher set of wind regulations at the start of the design development phase, according to The Guardian. Those tests will be coupled with later “micro-level” examinations of a given tower’s design that will test the magnitude and degree of wind generated by the forms of new skyscrapers, as measured from “36 wind directions, using separate consultants for computer and physical simulations,” according to The Guardian.

Under the new rules, the speed of downdrafts created by new towers will be capped at 18 miles per hour. Measured speeds at that level and above will be classified as being “uncomf...

The proliferation of facial recognition causes concern in London

2019-08-16T17:00:00-04:00

It emerged...that the property developer Argent was using the cameras “in the interests of public safety” in King’s Cross, mostly north of the railway station across an area including the Google headquarters and the Central Saint Martins art school, but the precise uses of the technology remained unclear.

Residents in the King's Cross district in London have mixed feelings concerning the use of facial recognition CCTV in the area. “For law enforcement purposes, there is some justification, but personally I don’t think a private developer has the right to have that in a public place,” one resident told The Guardian, expressing his dissatisfaction with the technology's use by a "private entity."

Others didn't seem to care as much."I don't mind being recognized...Actually, I feel safer if it's used for security reasons...," another resident expressed to The Guardian, sharing her favor with it being used to keep out criminals. In the end, it doesn't seem clear what the technology is being used for, however.

London rejects Foster+Partners' Tulip Tower

2019-07-15T14:03:00-04:00

In a defeat for Foster + Partners, London mayor Sadiq Khan has rescinded municipal approval for the 997-foot Tulip tower the architects had proposed for the city's Square Mile high-rise district.

Architect's Journal reports that a spokesperson for the mayor's office said that the tower's design was "of insufficient quality for such a prominent location," and that if built, the bulbous monolith "would result in harm to London’s skyline and impact views of the nearby Tower of London World Heritage Site."

The tower would have joined London's eclectic and growing skyline. Image courtesy of Foster + Partners.

The spokesperson added that the proposal, as currently articulated, would create "an unwelcoming, poorly-designed public space at street level.

The proposal includes using bulbous gondolas to reach the uppermost levels of the tower. Image courtesy of Foster + Partners.

The tower, which is being developed by J Safra Group, received preliminary approval from the City of London's plann...

Tallest City of London tower, 22 Bishopsgate, tops out

2019-05-20T15:28:00-04:00

The City of London’s new tallest building, PLP’s 22 Bishopsgate tower which completes next year, has reached its highest point The 62-storey skyscraper for French investment manager AXA IM – Real Assets and development partner Lipton Rogers officially topped out at 294.52m AOD (above ordnance datum) or 278m above ground.

The new 22 Bishopsgate tower (formerly the Pinnacle/Helter Skelter) now stands taller than its nearby City of London neighbors, the Cheesegrater and Heron Tower, but can't quite reach the height of the Renzo Piano-designed Shard near London Bridge.

Rendering of 22 Bishopsgate in its urban context. Image: Purple PR.

Postwar floating walkways finding a use in modern day London

2018-10-03T12:32:00-04:00

They were planned after the second world war to whisk people above car-choked streets in the financial district, but remained unpopular and half-built. Now, pedestrian walkways are being reimagined for a 21st-century city

The "pedway" made its structural debut as a solution to providing a walkable, streamlined path for pedestrians in London's car stricken streets. However, what was devised as a plan to create an efficient walkway system, turned into an under appreciated and underwhelming concept.

Examples of early pedway systems can be referenced from London's financial centre in the late 1940's. Critiques of the pedway system and its feasibility has been dissected in the documentary, Elevating London, where UCL professor of planning Michael Hebbert discusses the pedway's progression over the years.

However, despite it's enigmatic evolution, architecture firms like Make Architects are finding ways to resurrect these floating walkway systems. Their most recent project on The London Wall Place aims to transform pedways in to playful and functional path way.

Make's 36-storey tower 1 Leadenhall approved

2017-01-26T06:26:00-05:00

Designed by the former Foster + Partners architect Ken Shuttleworth’s Make practice, 1 Leadenhall will have 540,000 sq ft of office space, as well as 50,000 sq ft of shops and cafes on the ground, first and second floors. A public terrace will overlook the roof of the adjacent Grade II-listed Victorian market. Construction is due to start next year and the building is expected to open in 2021.

1 Leadenhall, so named due to its location next to the historic Leadenhall Market, will be 182.7-metre (600ft) and 36 stories high. The £400m skyscraper is one of the several new towers being built in the surrounding area, including 1 Undershaft that will be the second-tallest building in Western Europe nearly 300 meters tall and also the reworked 22 Bishopsgate or Pinnacle as it's been nicknamed.

Construction of the 'Pinnacle' to continue despite referendum result

2016-10-27T14:12:00-04:00

Now known as 22 Bishopsgate – its address near Liverpool Street station – the building will be the tallest in London’s financial district and is being developed by AXA Investment Managers Real Assets. The building will be 278 metres tall, 10 metres lower than the original design that was first outlined almost 10 years ago. Construction came to a halt five years ago...but AXA IM said it had continued with the foundations and expected to complete the building in 2019.

London mayor Sadiq Khan blocks extra funds for garden bridge

2016-07-11T03:34:00-04:00

The future of London’s proposed garden bridge has been called into further question after the city’s new mayor, Sadiq Khan, halted preparatory work on the structure over fears this could involve more public money being spent. The Garden Bridge Trust says the bridge from South Bank to Temple, featuring 270 trees and thousands of plants, will be a “tiara” for London, being both an iconic landmark and a vital pedestrian bridge.

Read more about London's Garden Bridge on architnect:

London's garden bridge, the saga continues

Why are Heatherwick's proposals succeeding in New York but tanking in London?

Sadiq Khan investigates troublesome details in Thames garden bridge project

Infrastructure or advertisement? Sky to sponsor the Garden Bridge

Make architects design 37-storey new office tower for City of London

2016-06-21T12:04:00-04:00

Brookfield is to build a new 700,000 ft2, 37-storey tower in the City of London - and work could begin as early as 2018. Designed by architect Make the plans for the proposed office tower at 1 Leadenhall feature a 9,600 ft2 public terrace with winter garden overlooking the historic Leadenhall Market. The tower will provide 538,000 ft2 of office space plus 51,500 ft2 of retail space on the first three floors.

Book Review: Katrina Palmer's "End Matter"

2015-06-09T20:02:00-04:00

On September 2, 1666, a fire began in a bakery on Pudding Lane in London. By the next day, the flames had fanned out north and west, engulfing much of the city’s medieval center. The fire, later knowns as the Great Fire of London, destroyed much of the old cathedral of St. Paul as well as the overcrowded, narrow streets that surrounded it. In the aftermath of the fire, a period of social unrest was followed by a large-scale reconstruction, helmed by the noted architect Sir Christopher Wren. He built a new cathedral in the English Baroque style and supervised, to some extent, the city’s larger reconstruction. Today, St. Paul’s Cathedral and much of the city’s core owes its appearance in part to Wren’s preference for a particular variety of white, soft stone hewed on the Isle of Portland. The restitution of London spurred the industrial development of Portland’s quarries. For every monument that rose up, such as the looming Doric column that memorialized the fire itself, a hole was e...

'Can of Ham' skyscraper coming to London after all

2015-01-21T14:03:00-05:00

Mace has been appointed to a pre-construction deal to build the much delayed ‘Can of Ham’ project at 60-70 St Mary Axe, Construction News can reveal. [...] The project was granted planning approval by the City of London in the summer of 2008 but immediately hit delays as the global financial crisis took hold [...]. The Foggo Associates-designed project will join a cluster of iconic towers in the centre of the City, including neighbouring 30 St Mary Axe, commonly known as the Gherkin.

Previously