Skidmore, Owings & Merrill can update their track record of AIA awards with the recent win of their sixth AIA Twenty-Five Year Award for the Exchange House at the Broadgate development in central London. Since 1969, the AIA bestows its sought-after Twenty-Five Year Award to a completed building that has continued to convey architectural design excellence and perseverance over the past 25-35 years.

Completed in 1990 following London's financial boom, the Broadgate Exchange House was the capstone of the Broadgate development and was built over the most complex location over the train tracks of the Liverpool Street Station. The 2015 AIA Twenty-Five Year Award jury awarded SOM for their simple and efficient structural solution that enabled the Exchange House to be realized over the challenging and historically rich site.

More info about the design below from SOM:

"The structural and architectural solutions of Exchange House embrace the constraints of the site and uses them to fuel a solution that overcomes the challenges beneath it. The building is suspended over the rail lines below via four, seven-story tied arches that bridge 78m (256ft). Only 5% of its footprint touches the ground. The centrally located lift core, fire stairs, and even the lobby are suspended from this bridge structure, touching the plaza beneath it out of necessity for access rather than support."

"Aesthetically, the structure was pulled outside of the building’s skin and left exposed to reveal the arches and their refined connection details. Its dark color heightens the contrast between the building’s two components, its structural frame and glistening glass enclosure suspended within it. In elevation, light and shadows help to further this expression."

"By elevating the building, the opportunity to bring an open space beneath was created, connecting Exchange Square to the south to Primrose Street to the north. It was possible to create the plaza by threading small columns through the rail lines below on an irregular spacing. This porosity of the ground level not only generated the largest civic space within the City of London, but also established Exchange House as the gateway to the development."

"Today, the civic space is framed by Exchange House and is an essential point of decompression in an otherwise densely populous part of the City, with restaurants, bars, event, art and seating areas keeping the square popular year round. Similarly, the building’s dramatic response to the site’s constraints and its harmonious relationship with the Victorian engineering of Liverpool Street Station’s roof structure keep its design as relevant today as in 1990 when the building was completed."

SOM was also recognized for two more projects in the 2015 AIA Institute Honor Awards. They will be presented with their awards during the 2015 AIA National Convention in Atlanta this May.

More project photos below.