20 Fenchurch Street

Location: London, UK
Scope: Office Tower
Area: 94,000sqm
Completed: 2014
Budget: £250 million
Client: Land Securities
Architect: Rafael Viñoly Architects
Structural Engineer: Halcrow Yolles
Services Engineer: Hilson Moran
Quantity Surveyor: Davis Langdon
Transportation Engineer: WSP Developments
Environmental Consultant: WSP Environmental
Lighting ConsultantC: BDP Lighting
Landscape Architect: Hyland Edgar Driver + Gillespies

This is a space offering a unique experience on a scale unlike anything either in London or indeed in the world. Although primarily an office building, the tower does offer a mix of uses with retail located around the foot of the tower and on the Fenchurch Street frontage, as well as provision for restaurants and cafes in the Sky Garden.

The building is designed to offer the maximum amount of flexibility in terms of potential tenant requirements, sub-divisibility and technical adaptability, and its form maximises the use of natural and renewable resources to reduce harmful emissions.

The tower’s striking and unusual form was carefully sculpted in direct response to its context, evolving through detailed design development assessments with the City of London and CABE.

A logical, if unconventional, rationale resulted in the majority of the tower’s accommodation being located towards the top of the building thus providing larger floor plates at higher levels where rental value is greater and minimising the footprint, creating the opportunity for a ‘Pocket Park’ at the base of the tower.

At the top of the building the increased floor plate allowed for the inclusion of a Sky Garden – a fully publicly accessible space with unprecedented 360° views across London.