80 Fenchurch Street

Solution

Eighty Fenchurch Street to the south-east of the City of London benefits from its convenient juxtaposition within the City’s insurance sector and trendy Aldgate. The new 15-storey office building, based on a conceptual Foster scheme, has been refined and extended by tp bennett to provide 250,000 sq ft of floorspace.

The 45m square building site is subdivided into nine 15 x 15m bays, with the long-span structure coinciding with this to give largely column-free flexible floor plates with a centrally placed atrium. The atrium itself playfully spirals throughout the building to create visual interest and allow light within the depth of the building and the entrance experience below.

The elevations express these structural bays in a refined Portuguese limestone cladding with windows punctuating this screen. This traditional material is used in a contemporary aesthetic. The building is significantly taller than those adjacent, so the windows project outward at the lower levels to reflect the prevailing streetscape by using flush and recessed windows above. The fifth elevation provides six external landscaped terraces at different levels, affording tremendous 360 degree views of the city and beyond.

On approach from Fenchurch Street, the two-storey foyer provides an entrance experience with business lounges, café and a forum for the building’s users. Above the office floors provide flexible open space, as well as two floors capable of housing 20,000 sq ft trading activities. “The whole approach to EightyFen is to create a total working experience that has the flexibility for all types of tenants, in a refreshing minimalist contemporary building design”, says tp bennett’s Bill Soper.