100 Bishopsgate
by Allies and Morrison with Arney Fender Katsalidis
Client The 100 Bishopsgate Partnership
Awards RIBA London Award 2022
The 100 Bishopsgate development offers three mixed-use office buildings: a 40-storey tower, a lower podium block, and a neighbouring building, with new connecting public realm interspersed with trees, planting, and a green wall.
The buildings鈥� arrangement, form and detail reinstate the medieval street pattern at ground level, creating new pedestrian links across the site. The tower鈥檚 twisting form is distinctive, its plan flaring downwards from a rectangle at the crown to a wider parallelogram at its base, with planar fa莽ades gradually accommodating the change in geometry.
The overall impression of the development is that of clarity, simplicity and legibility. Inside the tower, the layout is immediately understood. The core stands majestically in the entrance lobby, clad in grey-veined white marble with its striations meticulously laid and matched. Its solidity is in stark contrast to the transparency of the glazed perimeter. The surfaces of the marble facing the perimeter have been left rough, whilst those facing inwards towards the lift lobby are polished, thereby distinguishing between inside and out. The magnificently tall lift door openings command attention.
The tower鈥檚 office floors are the largest column-free floorplates in the City. Albeit highly efficient, these spaces are nonetheless flexible and adaptable enough for their occupants to express personality. The architect said, they can be thought of 鈥渁s shelves for many different books.鈥� There are double-height spaces and staircases between the lettable floors in the tower, and a rooftop garden on the podium building.
Externally the dynamic geometries of the tower鈥檚 various fa莽ades create shadows and distortions which conceal the building鈥檚 size. The splayed colonnade at ground level pays homage to the adjacent Grade I-listed church of St Ethelburga, the contrasting scales somehow sitting comfortably together.
The glazed fa莽ades are defined by their detail, geometrical arrangement and articulation. The double-glazed units have been designed to meet thermal, solar and light performance standards. The building achieves a BREEAM 鈥楨xcellent鈥� rating.
The outcome is both dynamic and sensitive, simple, and complex: a tour de force.
Internal area: 133,719.00 m虏
Contractor: Multiplex
Environmental / M&E Engineers: Hilson Moran聽
Structural Engineers: Robert Bird Group
Security, Fa莽ade Engineer, Accessibility, Transport: 础谤耻辫听
Project Management: Gardiner & Theobald聽
Quantity Surveyor / Cost Consultant: 础别肠辞尘听听
Landscape Architects: Hyland Edgar Driver聽
Vertical Transport: Vertical Transportation Studio聽
Lighting Design: Speirs and Major聽
Acoustic Engineers: Acoustic Logic聽聽
Planning Consultants: Avison Young聽聽
