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

Design revealed for 1 Undershaft, London's tallest skyscraper by the "thinking developer’s architect"

2015-12-09T12:55:00-05:00

After a decade of outlandish proposals for the City, Parry has come up with a refreshingly blunt stick of a building for the centrepiece of the district’s “cluster” of office blocks. [...] “The thing that’s most interesting in all this is urban design,” says Parry, deflecting the discussion away from the fact that he is penning the City’s tallest totem. He’s more concerned with fixing the human experience at street level: “The project is really all about public space.”

Soon to join the "great dinner party in the sky," between Rogers Strik Harbour + Partners' Cheesegrater and Foster + Partners' Gherkin, 1 Undershaft will be as tall as The Shard (the maximum height limit for the city). According to The Guardian, the building was also designed to have a triangular cap, but city planners didn't want to add to the line-up of "overt shape[s]" already crowding London's skyline.

For more current projects in London:

Archinect - News

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

Design revealed for 1 Undershaft, London's tallest skyscraper by the "thinking developer’s architect"