150 Leadenhall Street Tower
The fourth and final project is in the City of London, which is where WilkinsonEyre is based, but it is perhaps the most challenging in terms of design. London, being steeped with history, makes new interventions interesting but also highly constrained, not just on height and gross floor area, but also by restricted view corridors, particularly related to St. Paul’s Cathedral.
The site, on the corner of Leadenhall Street and Bishopsgate, marks an important gateway into the insurance and financial district of the City. It is located in what is known as the Eastern Cluster, where taller buildings are permitted. It is close to Rogers Stirk Harbour’s recently completed tower the Leadenhall Building (commonly known as the ‘Cheesegrater’) and adjacent to a KPF design for a tower known as the ‘Pinnacle’ at 22 Bishopsgate. However, the Pinnacle, which was under construction, was put on hold during the last financial crisis and now has a new design by PLP Architects for a different client.
Image courtesy of WilkinsonEyre
Summary
So the four projects are each very different in character because they are designed to suit their specific site Context and Brief. The Guangzhou IFC strives for an elegant simplicity in the new CBD that distinguishes it from the many other towers in China’s third city.
Crown Sydney is designed as a sculptural form which creates a landmark on its important waterfront site at Barangaroo. The Bay Centre in Toronto makes a strong visual statement to extend the Financial District beyond the railway towards the Lake.
And the 150 Leadenhall Street tower in London, which marks a gateway into the financial and insurance district, takes a restrained architectural approach that sits comfortably in the City’s Eastern Cluster.
At WilkinsonEyre, there is no house style and each project relates to its particular brief and context, but the interest in geometry carries through to each project which provides the opportunity to explore something new. It determines the form and appearance of the building which is expressed in the architecture, giving it a distinctive character and individuality.