One of our long standing clients came to us with a dilemma. Despite being one of their best performing buildings it was clear that so much more could improved with the site, how it interfaced with the wider cityscape and also the community that uses the building everyday.

Densification in any part of central London is fraught with difficulties but also opportunities in terms of reworking problematic existing spaces so they coherently work better within themselves socially and functionally but also ‘look outward’ in a more coherent way. The proposals look both at the streetscape and building volumetric to foster both greater connectivity within a disparate set of building forms but also to bring a more conceptually strong architectural language for the site context as a whole.

The proposals look to increase the height of the building up by a further ten storeys to the main tower footprint but also increase the podium level building by a further two storeys. The complexity of the project is not simply the additional height and the structural solutions this will require but also the development of an architectural language that will work for both this site and sit comfortably in its surrounding setting.

The community that live in this building are principally young and in full time education and as a result there is a fundamental importance in delivering breakout space and variety of communal activity space for students to share experiences, relax or study.

As with all our projects, at is heart is the importance of developing a sense of intrinsic community and as a result this will physically manifest itself as shared amenity and work spaces at various levels of the new building environment.