Archinect - News

WeWork is taking over London's postmodern icon One Poultry

2017-11-21T19:20:00-05:00

This year, the group has expanded aggressively into the City of London, snapping up floor space usually reserved for large corporates over the year to date, including large offices in Moorgate — its largest site globally — and at One Poultry, a Grade II listed building directly opposite the Bank of England.

The start up WeWork has acquired One Poultry, the Grade II post-modern icon designed by James Stirling and completed in 1998. After a heavily contested designation, the building is currently in the process of undergoing an extensive refurbishment headed by Architects BuckleyGreyYeomen and expected for completion in spring 2018.

WeWork will replace the former tenants, the British insurance company Aviva, who moved out of the building earlier this year. According to the Financial Times, the co-working giant is seeking to capitalize on Brexit uncertainties by offering flexible office space in London to anxious global banks. The company has been aggressively expanding into the city, nearly doubling its city footprint in the past year, and is in talks to buy a 12-building campus near Liverpool Street railway station.

City of London’s One Poultry to become design-led creative office

2017-03-27T13:43:00-04:00

Development manager General Projects, along with architects BuckleyGrayYeoman, have been commissioned to re-establish the building as a Grade A HQ office and retail building, thoughtfully designed around the evolving needs of today’s creative sector businesses, whilst celebrating and reconstituting the building’s original splendour as a masterpiece of modern British architecture.

One Poultry, completed almost two decades ago in 1998, is both an iconic and striking building, located above Bank underground station in the heart of the City, with neighbours including the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England. Recently awarded Grade II* listing, One Poultry, with its characteristic, colourful material usage and prominent positioning, is truly a landmark building. Recent exhibitions, books, and talks have focused on the history of this project; of the start of the site, and the turbulent unbuilt plans of the previous Mies van der Rohe design.

BuckleyGrayYeoman's scheme, which will deliver 110,000sqft of inspirational Grade A offices, will maintain the solid, inspirational, postmodernist style with commissioned artwork, generous facilities, and ‘gallery-style volumes’ including ceilings soaring to almost four metres.

The surrounding area is soon to reflect the City’s ‘vibrant future’ too, with a new hotel from the Soho House Group and the Foster + Partners design fo...

Postmodern No 1 Poultry divides architects in debate over recent heritage

2015-07-14T15:09:00-04:00

It might be the City’s most contested site. A new call to list No 1 Poultry, designed by architect Sir James Stirling and one of the last monuments of postmodernism, has revived a debate about the position and the protection of recent heritage. A proposal by Perella Weinberg [...] to make changes to an imperfect building has provoked the Twentieth Century Society to call for its listing at Grade II*, the second highest status available (and the highest possible for such a recent structure).