Central House

Our design for this project responds to the urban context of the City of London and to the local urban environment of the site in Aldgate, just east of the City. The proposal includes 130,000m² of offices, retail, public amenities and the creation of a 2 acre urban park. The architecture of the building has been informed by its environment and a desire to establish and communicate a hierarchy of scale of space as perceived from a distance and from close proximity. Equally, the design creates, through its four storey podium, a human scale when perceived from the adjacent streets. The principal massing of the proposal is that of an articulated tower, emerging from a podium base, the latter equally articulated to achieve a visual relationship and scale shift with the surrounding fabric. The tower will be clad predominantly in glass. The glass used will, however, have varying degrees of transparency, responding to views into and out of the building and to the degree of exposure to direct sunlight.

The roof of the podium and the intermediate garden terraces will be soft landscape and paved in harmony with the external cladding materials.

The building design in the context of London’s skyline, in particular viewed from Parliament Hill, Greenwich and Waterloo Bridge has created a unique and articulated profile. The client, Sandhu Properties Ltd, decided to withdraw the planning application in March 1986 and to re-submit after the local council elections. As a result of the subsequent change in the local political climate, the scheme was not re-submitted.