McAslan Design Brass London Block
Published on 25-02-2008 by Skyscrapernews.com
St Martins Property Investments is planning a new office building designed by John McAslan architects for the sensitive site of 5 Cheapside barely 100 metres from St Paul's Cathedral.
It will replace an old seven storey largely concrete office building known colloquially as "the Octagon" thanks to its eight sides.
Within 5 Cheapside will be 9,984 square metres of gross internal floorspace of which the vast bulk, 8087 square metres, will be offices, almost doubling what is currently there. There will also be retail located on the lower floors replacing the existing space.
The building proposals are noticeable for their somewhat unusual design that has given the scheme a distinctive shape that includes a two storey cantilever on the north side of the building over the adjacent London Underground entrance.
Extending over the Underground Station will also allow the building to follow the historic street plan and reject the lone block philosophy the Octagon champions.
Elsewhere, chamfered upper floors mitigate the bulk whilst helping the building relate to its immediate surroundings and blend in more with the urban streetscape when viewed from St Paul's as it will slope down from the trees that separate it from the cathedral.
Clad in a complicated glazing system that employs a woven brass metal layer that is integrated with the glass giving an opaque outer view of the main floors whilst allowing the office occupants to still see out.
The effect of the panels, set flush to each other, is intended by the architect to create a "sculptural qualities... enhanced by the homegenous surface treatment of the building, represented as a series of 'polished' cut surfaces."
With Jean Nouvel having taken the opposite aesthetic approach of transuculent glass to the nearby One Cheapside this area near St Paul's could soon have a couple of interesting architectural counterpoints facing off at each other if they are both realised.
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