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London’s Shard: a ‘tower of power and riches’ looking down on poverty

The Sheet — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:04:08 +0000

Renzo Piano's skyscraper, which will be Europe's tallest building, may provide a shot in the arm for London – or be merely a symbol of Qatari financial muscle

Slicing through the air above the dank and dripping Victorian tunnels by London Bridge is a new symbol of extraordinary confidence.

The glinting Shard of Glass has become the tallest building in Europe, rising higher than Canary Wharf's main tower, Frankfurt's Commerzbank and the Ostankino television tower in Moscow.

The 310-metre-high (1,017ft) building is scheduled to open in June, in what is forecast to be a continuing economic slump. But, experienced from the highest apartment on the 66th floor, thoughts of Britain's stagnation are obliterated by the mind-boggling views.

From the cavernous double-height living room more than 200 metres up in the air, the city of eight million people looks like a toy town. The London Eye becomes a fairground attraction and HMS Belfast a model boat. The twin stadiums – Olympic and Wembley – feel within touching distance. Trains inch along like millipedes into London Bridge station, while to the east the Thames curves out to the sea.

In certain weather all this is above the cloud deck. The spectacular views will next year go on sale to the highest bidder when apartments could fetch tens of millions of pounds each.

In all, there will be 27 floors of offices, three floors of fine dining restaurants, an 18-floor, five-star Shangri-La hotel with a spa, and 10 palatial apartments, each on average seven times bigger than a semi-detached home. A four-storey public viewing area is being built starting on the 68th floor which is likely to cost around £20 to access. The developer is even considering renting out the very highest room on the 78th floor for high powered conferences and political talks – summits at the summit.

"We could send Europe's top politicians up there and not let them down until they solve the euro crisis," said Irvine Sellar, the building's developer.

The architect, Renzo Piano, has mooted an alternative use as a meditation suite and is said to be keen the space should not become a playground only for the super-rich and powerful.

But how does all this, rising beside some of the poorest wards in the country, add up in Britain's listing economy? It is notable that so far no office tenants have signed up, although the developers say they are in talks with several and are being selective. The answer may lie in its ownership - the Shard owes its existence to a power play by a gas-rich kingdom more than 4,000 miles away.

From spring 2009, when construction began, Qatari wealth poured into the project. As the global economic crisis forced builders to down tools on sites across the UK, around £1.5bn – mostly from the Gulf – bankrolled the Shard.

Two of the apartments span two entire floors each and are expected to become London homes for members of the Qatari royal family. The Shard – 80% owned through the country's central bank – is now the jewel in the crown of the emirate's growing London estate, which also includes Harrods, the American embassy building in Grosvenor Square, and Chelsea Barracks.

The Qataris insist they are simply diversifying their investment holdings. But observers of Gulf politics believe there is a diplomatic purpose and regional one-upmanship at play. For example, some Kuwaitis and Emiratis are said to be jealous that Harrods, their favourite London shop, is owned by Qatar.

It was not meant to be like this. In 2000, when the Shard's silhouette was first sketched on the back of a Berlin restaurant menu by Piano, the project was wholly in the hands of Sellar, a former Carnaby Street trader, and his business partners. London's skyline was rising on a tide of easy credit and buoyant property prices. Lord Foster's gherkin-shaped tower for Swiss Re was about to be built in the City and plans for a cluster of taller towers – the "cheesegrater", the "walkie talkie", the "helterskelter" – were being drafted.

A planning inquiry followed the unveiling of Piano's design, which he charmingly said was inspired by the spires of London's old churches, and John Prescott, then deputy prime minister, gave his approval in 2003. But when it came to erecting the building, Sellar and his partners could not raise the construction finance because of the global financial crisis.

Qatari investors bought 80% of the project in January 2008, when it was valued at £2bn.

"The UK is a dear country to us," said the Qatar ambassador to London, Khalid bin Rashid bin Salim al-Hamoudi al-Mansouri. "We have been investing in this country before and after the crash. Our investment is a long-term investment. We don't need cash money now. This comes from a strategy of diversifying our economy over 10, 20, 30 years. We think the UK is the right place to put our investment. The UK is a strategic partner with our country."

The governor of Qatar's central bank, Sheikh Abdullah bin Saud al-Thani, has been more explicit about the diplomatic potential of the acquisition. He said he was confident the Shard would become "a symbol of the close ties between Qatar and the UK".

Dr Christopher Davidson, an expert in the politics of the Gulf at Durham University, said the Shard played a part in Qatar's programme of "soft diplomacy" with countries such as the UK and US that provide it with security guarantees.

"The invasion of Kuwait is still fresh in the memory of rulers in the Gulf and being invaded for your petrochemical wealth remains a nightmare," he said. "Qatar is in a tight spot between Saudi Arabia and Iran and its very survival rests on the west's guarantee. The thinking goes that if someone invades a country that has the highest skyscraper in London, then surely the UK should come to the rescue."

For Davidson, the Shard is in the same category as Abu Dhabi's purchase of Manchester City Football Club. "It is high-profile and won't necessarily turn a profit, but the benefits are non-pecuniary," he said.

Such talk about hidden agendas for the building makes Piano uncomfortable.

"This is not about money," he said. "It is about surprise and joy. This is about the way cities should go. They should stop and we should not go beyond the green belt. If you do this by going vertical that sends a message about conserving land. The building is not about arrogance and power but about increasing the intensity of city life."

He compared the project to the Pompidou Centre in Paris, which he designed with Richard Rogers in the mid-1970s. It turned the model of the fine art gallery inside out, placing the building's innards – its ducts, pipes and structure – on the facade.

"Architecture is not neutral, it celebrates something," he said. "When we built the Pompidou Centre it celebrated rebellion against the idea that culture should be intimidating. The Shard will celebrate community, the sense of the city, the sense of exchange. I think the building will become loved in London because it is not arrogant. Normally towers are not loved because they shut down at 6pm and you have a black glass block. This is not about money or power. It is about surprise and joy."

While many Londoners have already taken the building to their hearts, some locals are puzzled by their new neighbour and are struggling to understand its economic rationale.

"None of it hangs together and to me it seems commercially absurd," said Russell Gray, owner of the Tanneries, a small business complex created from restored Victorian warehouses close by. "But that doesn't matter if what you are after is a latter-day pyramid celebrating the arrival of the Qataris on the world stage."

Sellar couldn't disagree more and believes the building is the kind of counter-cyclical investment the UK economy needs. "If we want to get out of this malaise then this is the sort of project that should be done," he said. "We think it is a great image. It says, 'This is London, this is the Shard and we can kick sand in the face of the Eiffel Tower.'"

More than 2,000 16- to 24-year-olds in Southwark not only have no work, but are also not in education or training. The council is hoping to use £4.4m obtained from the developer in the £15m planning gain agreement to transform this small army and others into "a supply of enthusiastic, job-ready, local young people and adult jobseekers".

There is hope that people could train at Southwark College as beauticians to work in the spa at the hotel, as fitness instructors for the gym, and as florists, shop assistants, security guards, secretaries and office managers, although council papers reveal that "there is no obligation on the tenants and businesses in the completed development to provide job opportunities".

So far the council can boast that "up to the end of September, the key output is 40 local people into jobs in the building".

"There has been a failure of imagination," said Nick Stanton, a Liberal Democrat and former leader of Southwark council. "There should be something in this building that the community uses on a daily basis instead of just walking around it. There should be something like a library in it … one of the frustrations I had as leader was the inability to link a big project like this to local outcomes."

Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics, said it was a "tower of power and riches" in a poor borough. "It points to the paradoxical nature of property development in cities such as London. In order to bring about transformation it is necessary to accept gentrification. It is inevitable the arrival of a sharp piece of global capitalism is an odd incursion into a borough that is still authentic old Victorian London."

The appearance of the building has created what Travers calls a "new mental geography" of the capital. For example the presence of the Shard makes suddenly obvious what every London taxi driver already knew: that the quickest way from Westminster to the City is via the South Bank.

Lord Prescott, who approved the tower in the face of stern opposition from English Heritage, has watched it "growing all the time" from his flat in the Parliament View complex by Westminster bridge.

"It was a difficult decision that I was faced with about high-rise buildings along the Thames," said the former deputy PM. "I thought this one was interesting. The Shard was in a part of London on the South Bank that needed to be developed as well. From what I have seen of it, it will achieve that. I thought its design was very striking and significant and part of modern cities and on the South Bank, whereas before the thinking was that high-rise buildings would be in Canary Wharf. Were we simply going to locate them there or would there be a regeneration argument for locating them on the South Bank?"

Over the river in the City, the Corporation of London appears miffed by the Southwark upstart. It has urged the London mayor, Boris Johnson, to prevent the Shard being used as a precedent by other developers to disregard protected viewing corridors that restrict development around St Paul's, the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey.

Piano is unperturbed by criticism it is too dominant on the horizon and says "the building disappears into the sky".

"This is the most important moment when you realise what the building will be like in the city," he said. "I think it is what I wanted. It is going to be sharp. It is not going to take away light. It is a building that will reflect the humour of the weather because the shards are not vertical, they are inclined. It will reflect the ever-changing process and colours of the sky."

Sellar, for his part, is sure the building will become a new icon. "People will feel proud," he said. "This is London. This is the Shard."

Robert Booth

Summits at the summit: the Shard could host talks for world leaders

The Sheet — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:48:50 +0000

Europe's tallest building could include exclusive space on 78th floor for top-level meetings, says building's developer

It would be the summit at the summit. The top floor of the Shard, Europe's tallest skyscraper, could be made available for high powered conferences and political talks, the building's developer has told the Guardian.

Irvine Sellar said he is considering making the 78th floor, which is so elevated it is sometimes above the clouds, an exclusive meeting space which would allow political leaders to hold talks with an unrivalled bird's eye view above London Bridge.

"We could send Europe's top politicians up there and not let them down until they solve the Euro crisis," he said

The highest room anywhere in Europe has space for up to 60 people and would be accessed by a dedicator elevator off the public viewing galleries.

The plan is being debated by Sellar and his architect, Renzo Piano. Already a four-storey public viewing area is being built starting on the 68th floor which is likely to cost around £20 to access.

But the developer, keen to recoup investment of around £2bn in the building, is aware of the revenue-generating potential for the even-higher space.

Piano, who said he believes the building "celebrates life and in some measure, poetry", has mooted an alternative use as a meditation suite and is said to be keen the space should not become a playground only for the super-rich and powerful.

At the Shard's upper levels, helicopters and planes coming into land at City airport fly along at eye level and on a clear day the view stretches 40 miles. Construction workers said it sometimes snows at the top while it is raining at ground level.

The idea has echoes of the Pyramid of Peace in Kazakhstan's capital Astana. That Norman-Foster-designed building has a 200-seat chamber at the apex for meetings of the leaders of the world's religions.

The 310m-tall Shard is due to be fully built next June and looks likely to open in the depths of Britain's economic slump. So far no tenants have signed up for the 27 floors of office space, although the developers said they are in talks with several and are being selective. It is 80% owned by the Gulf emirate of Qatar and has been described by critics as "a sharp piece of global capitalism" and "a latter-day pyramid celebrating the arrival of the Qataris on the world stage". But many Londoners have taken the building to their hearts.

Piano insisted that the building was not an out-of-date monument to "arrogance and power", and pointed out it could help save the countryside from sprawl. "This is not about money," he said. "It is about surprise and joy. This is about the way cities should go. They should stop and we should not go beyond the green belt. If you do this by going vertical that sends a message about conserving land. The building is not about arrogance and power but about increasing the intensity of city life."

Works have begun on fitting out an 18-storey five-star Shangri-La hotel within the Shard and ten huge apartments at its top, which are likely to sell for tens of millions of pounds each.

Sellar, whose company owns 20% of the tower, insisted the building was not out of sync with the era of austerity.

"If we want to get out of this malaise then this is the sort of project that should be done," he said. "We think it is a great image. It says, 'This is London, this is the Shard and we can kick sand in the face of the Eiffel Tower.'"

Unesco will next year consider whether to downgrade or even remove the World Heritage status of the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey in part because of the Shard's looming silhouette.

This month inspectors from the United Nations world heritage committee paid a four day visit to London to consider the effectiveness of measures to protect the World Heritage status of the sites.

"We are concerned that the sites might lose their outstanding universal value by being dwarfed by inappropriate development," said Patricia Alberth, programme specialist for the Europe area at Unesco in Paris. "They could decide to remove their status or decide whether they should be placed on a list of danger which means they could be delisted."

Robert Booth

Battersea Power Station: the power of dreams

The Sheet — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:49:28 +0000

Battersea Power Station will go on the market early in the new year after its latest redesign collapsed into administration. There have been many false starts over the years …

Bank of England builder goes into administration

The Sheet — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 23:06:25 +0000

Holloway White Allom, the construction firm that rebuilt Threadneedle Street in the 1920s, calls in administrators

The builder that remodelled the Bank of England before the second world war has gone into administration.

Holloway White Allom, which only recently completed a refurbishment of the Victoria & Albert Museum, was put in the hands of KPMG last week, it emerged on Tuesday.

Shortly prior to the administrators' appointment, 175 staff were made redundant.

As well as its rebuilding of the Bank of England – described by architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as the 20th century's "greatest architectural crime" in the City, due to its reconstruction of Sir John Soane's original structure – the firm worked on numerous London landmarks.

In a previous incarnation as Holloway Brothers, it built the Admiralty Buildings on Horse Guards Parade, the Old Bailey in the early 1900s and the fountains in Trafalgar Square. It was also active in civil engineering and constructed several bridges across the Thames, including Hampton Court bridge, Wandsworth bridge and Chelsea bridge, and helped construct the "Mulberry harbours", the floating docks used in the D-day Normandy landings in 1944.

In 1960, Holloway Brothers acquired White Allom, a firm with an equally distinguished history in interior design. As well as doing work on the interior of the Waldorf Astoria, White Allom restored St Donat's castle in Wales for the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, did extensive work on Buckingham Palace, and worked on the interior of the QE2 ocean liner.

Holloway White Allom was part of the John Laing construction group from the 1960s until 2002, when its managers took it private.

KPMG has confirmed only that it has been appointed administrators.

It is unclear what pushed the firm over the brink, but the economic downturn has seen huge numbers of construction companies in difficulty.

Data from the construction intelligence firm Glenigan showed Holloway White Allom was working on a £4m upgrade of a Chelsea mansion owned by Viscount Macmillan, the great-grandson of former prime minister Harold Macmillan.

Alex Hawkes

RIBA Manser Medal contenders up in the air

The Sheet — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:58:19 +0000

Shortlist for prize honouring best new private home in the UK has revealed a common quirk among cutting-edge architects

Those suffering from vertigo should look away now. The shortlist for the prize honouring the best new private home in the UK has revealed an increasingly common quirk among cutting-edge architects to go alongside the perennial fondness for floor-to-ceiling glass: rooms suspended in mid-air.

Two of the six contenders for the 2011 Manser Medal, organised annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), display this trick, known in the trade as cantilevering. One, Ty Hedfan in Brecon – the name means "hovering house" in Welsh – cunningly circumvents planning restrictions against building along the river bank which adjoins the plot by sending out a glass-walled spur to hang above the water's edge.

More dramatic still is the self-explanatory Balancing Barn in Suffolk, pictures of which resemble on first glance an optical illusion. At least half of the long, slim structure hangs precipitously over the edge of a steep, grass incline. It looks as if an escaped railway carriage has run out of track or, thanks to the shiny silver cladding, like a floating barrage balloon.

The barn, which is available for public rent, is "completely bonkers and very playful", said Tony Chapman, head of awards at RIBA and one of the five-strong judging panel. Most alarming, he said, is the glass floor inside the far-hanging edge: "It's so potentially unnerving for some people that they provide bits of carpet you can put over it, if you want."

The appeal for the judges of Ty Hedfan's cantilever was as much practical as aesthetic, Chapman said: "They weren't allowed to build on the river bank but there's nothing in the small print which says you can't build over the river bank. We like things like that, which get one over slightly on the planners."

The other four contenders are a varied bunch, albeit within a prevailing taste for generous glazing which blurs the boundaries between home and garden, and materials which seek to blend the building with the wider landscape.

There is one urban dwelling, not strictly speaking a new residence: a mid-century, brutalist home in Highgate, north London, remodelled to open the rooms out onto a secluded garden.

Another triumph against the planners is Watson House, an elegant glass-and-timber structure in the heart of the New Forest, which was only permitted on condition it was invisible from public sections of the woodland. The most modest home – a relative term within a selection with budgets starting at £500,000 – is New Mission Hall in Sussex, a pair of conjoined structures on the site of a Baptist chapel which offers a blank, brick facade from the road before opening out into a glassed rectangle at the rear.

The final contender, in the Surrey stockbroker belt of Epsom, most closely resembles the stereotypical notion of a modernist house, from its over 700 sq metres of living space and curtains of walled glass grand enough to satisfy the most demanding exhibitionist to its occupants who seemingly own little more than a few discreetly tasteful items of furniture and art, their toothbrushes presumably locked well out of view.

Inside, however, the design was clever enough to avoid severity, Chapman said, featuring touches like a cosy family TV room deep inside the interior. "You go in there and your first thought is, 'yes, this is an expensive, grand house'. But as you go round it you find lots of lovely little things that make it very intimate."

Overall, he said, the shortlist was perhaps the most diverse in the prize's 10-year history. The inclusion of the pair of cantilevered structures had not been planned. "Maybe subliminally we paired them off," he said. "But I don't think we did it deliberately."

While it would be "slightly arrogant" for RIBA to assume the prize had a direct influence on the wider design of housing, Chapman said, the hope was it might provide food for thought.

"The whole point of the medal, I think, is to try and improve the standard of all housing. We would like to think that there were things that fed into social housing in Hackney as well as the next rich person's house in Surrey.

"The standard of housebuilding in this country is not great. In fact it's pretty poor. It would be good if we could even just inspire clients to ask for things they might not have otherwise considered."

The winner will be announced at a ceremony on 10 November.

Peter Walker

London 2012: Olympic flame will be lit in one year’s time, but still much to do

The Sheet — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:07:55 +0000

IOC hail progress as Tom Daley dives into Aquatics Centre pool, completed on time and budget

With 366 days to go, 2012 being a leap year, until the Olympic flame is lit in east London, organisers, the government and the International Olympic Committee are queuing up to hail progress to date.

Wednesday's events to mark the milestone, which will see the £269m Zaha Hadid designed Aquatics Centre formally handed over to organisers by the Olympic Delivery Authority and Tom Daley diving into the pool, will have an air of celebration.

"Marking one year to go, by diving in the Aquatics Centre is an incredible honour. Only a few years ago, this was a distant dream," said Daley, who finished fifth at the world championships in Shanghai on Sunday. "I can't wait for next year and the honour of representing Team GB." But although world class athletes are beginning to test the venues, there remains much to do.

Venues

The Aquatics Centre is the sixth and final permanent venue to be handed over to organisers by the ODA, which has spent £7.25bn of public money building them. Chairman John Armitt said the successful completion of the venues had helped boost the image of British contractors around the world.

"It's very satisfying to be handing it over on time and keeping within the budget. It's a great tribute to everybody that has played a part in this," he told the Guardian. "It is something that as a country and an industry we should be proud of and we should try to maximise opportunities in other parts of the world while memories are still fresh about what the industry can do."

Some venues, especially the velodrome that has already been nominated for the Stirling Prize, have garnered more plaudits than others. The clean lines and simplicity of the stadium have also been praised but there has been criticism of the ugly temporary "water wings" that have been attached to the aquatics centre to boost the capacity to 17,500 for the Games. When it was designed, the high cost was justified by the signature design, which will be obscured by the temporary stands. "When you're inside it, it's fabulous," says Armitt, diplomatically.

Despite outward appearances, the London organising committee still has a huge task. Each venue must be "fitted out", a task that includes the laying of the track in the main stadium, and several major temporary venues must be built from scratch. They include a 15,000 capacity hockey stadium, a 23,000 capacity arena for the equestrian events at Greenwich Park and a 15,000 seat bowl on Horseguard's Parade for the beach volleyball.

Tickets

London organising committee chief executive Paul Deighton has confirmed the last batch of 1.2m tickets that will go on sale from December will first be made available exclusively to those who took part in the initial ballot in April and have yet to get a ticket. Around 6m tickets have already been sold, considered unprecedented with a year to go, with only around 1.5m for football matches around the country and those final 1.2m across all sports – to be made available when the final seating configurations are decided – remaining. Next year, Locog also plans to sell "non-event tickets" which will allow entry to the park but not the venues.

Later this year, millions of free tickets for the live sites, with big screens and concerts in Hyde Park, Victoria Park and Potter's Fields will also be made available on a first come, first served basis. The mantra from Locog chairman Lord Coe and other organisers has been that while they understand the "disappointment" created by the huge demand, which saw 22m applications in the initial rush for tickets, they stand by the controversial process.

Transport

Ever since London was awarded the Games in 2005, transport has been considered a potential achilles heel. The ODA passed responsibility for operational matters to Transport for London last year, but retains an overall co-ordination role. The first stirrings of a backlash have already been felt about the so-called "Olympic lanes" that will whisk 18,000 athletes and officials around the capital during the Games.

They make up roughly a third of the 109-mile Olympic Route Network and have already sparked loud protests from London's black cab drivers. Meanwhile, much will rest on the ability of organisers to persuade businesses and individuals to modify their behaviour during the Games.

"The message must be business as unusual," said Armitt. They take some comfort from the variety of routes into Stratford, including the Jubilee Line and the new Javelin train from St Pancras, but will be desperate to avoid a millennium eve style meltdown.

On the nine busiest days of the Games there will be more than 1m Olympics-related journeys, with a report earlier this year warning of "extreme" conditions on a system already "creaking at the seams".

Security

Olympics minister Hugh Robertson said that security plans needed rethinking when the coalition came to power. Before she quit, Lady Neville-Jones led a government review that resulted in the government predicting security at Games time could be delivered for £475m, though the overall £600m envelope will be retained.

Ministers and organisers have sought to play down the significance of the resignation of Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, but he said in his own statement that a key reason for it was to allow time to get someone new in place for the Olympics. Locog will spend £282m on security within the venues, chiefly through contractor G4S, but there will also need to call on several thousand non-uniformed military personnel.

'Look and feel'

For all the operational challenges Coe's organising committee will face, in many ways the bigger challenge is building public enthusiasm for the Games to reach a crescendo around 27 July next year when the flame is lit. Coe has talked of Britain being a "slow burn" nation. He hopes the torch relay, which will begin at Land's End on 19 May and visit 74 locations in 70 days via 8,000 runners, will be the point at which cynicism is cast aside and enthusiasm ignites.

Part of the task will be to keep those without tickets engaged, through the big screens planned for cities throughout the country and cultural events that will culminate in Festival 2012. London mayor Boris Johnson has a budget to "dress" key areas of the city, including placing Olympic rings on the capital's landmarks. The BBC, which has promised to broadcast every event from every venue live, will also have a big role to play.

Legacy

Given the relatively smooth progress of organisers to date, much of the controversy has centred on the legacy claims that helped secure the Games in the first place. The Olympic Park Legacy Company has taken on responsibility for the park after the Games and must prove it can make a commercial success of it while meeting the needs of local residents.

The fate of the stadium, the object of a furious row between Spurs and West Ham, is mired in high court litigation and it will face searching scrutiny over the affordability of thousands of homes that will be left behind, partly the athletes village.

One of the biggest challenges for the OPLC will be finding a tenant for the cavernous media centre, although there are renewed hopes that a major broadcaster may take an interest.

But even more of a challenge is the "soft legacy", with figures showing that the number of people playing sport is resolutely refusing to budge and ongoing debate about whether the predicted opportunity to get more young people engaged in sport, build links between clubs and schools and raise the profile and quality of coaching, is really being seized. They were famously planting the trees in Athens the day before the opening ceremony, but the landscaping on the Olympic Park is starting to take shape.

More than 4,000 new trees are planned, with 1,500 already planted. Over 300,000 wetland plants have been planted and there are bold claims for the Park that will be left behind. Eventually, there will be up to 11,000 new homes on the site, in the heart of an area that the Olympic Park Legacy Company hopes will be resurgent. Westfield, the giant shopping mall at the entrance to the Park and on which politicians are relying for many of their legacy claims about jobs and regeneration, opens for business in September.

Owen Gibson

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China opens world’s longest sea bridge

The Sheet — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 13:31:09 +0000

26-mile Jiaozhou Bay crossing connects Qingdao to Huangdao, took four years to build and uses 5,000 pillars

China, which seems to complete mammoth infrastructure projects on a routine basis, has claimed another world-beater with the opening of the longest sea bridge.

The 26-mileJiaozhou Bay crossing connects the bustling port city of Qingdao, south-east of Beijing, to the industrial district of Huangdao.

The eight-lane, 35-metre-wide bridge opened to traffic on Thursday morning, China's Xinhua news agency said. Built over a four-year period the project cost about £1.4bn and uses 5,000 pillars. It shortens the driving route between the two locations by about 20 miles.

Somewhat inevitably, the bridge takes the world record from another Chinese sea crossing, the 22.5-mile Hangzhou Bay bridge, which opened in 2008, connecting the cities of Jiaxing and Ningbo, south of Shanghai. The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana, at almost 24 miles, is slightly longer but crosses an inland waterway rather than open sea.

China is constructing an even more ambitious bridge. Work began in December 2009 on a Y-shaped structure linking Guangdong province in southern China to Hong Kong and Macau. Building is expected to be finished in 2015, and the bridge is expected to cover about 31 miles, although only about 22 miles will span the sea.

Peter Walker

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Battle for City’s Broadgate site hots up

The Sheet — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 16:07:35 +0000

William Hill giving odds that Jeremy Hunt will not save 'historic' 1980s complex from demolition for new UBS headquarters

Expectations have increased that furious lobbying from the City is likely to prevent the listing of the 1980s-built complex in Broadgate that has become a tug of war between financiers and conservationists.

For the first time bookmaker William Hill has opened a book on a building listing and is giving 4-7 that culture secretary Jeremy Hunt will not save the complex.

English Heritage last week recommended that the entire 1980s development, designed by architect Peter Foggo, be given statutory protection at Grade II* level, dealing a major blow to British Land's plans to tear down 4 and 6 Broadgate to make way for a new "groundscraper" building that would house a £340m headquarters for Swiss bank UBS.

Although the law states that the listing decision should be made on the basis of architectural and historic factors alone, Hunt is under pressure from the City of London corporation to ignore his official adviser and choose not to list it.

The City argues that the new scheme is vital to maintain confidence in it as a banking centre. Hunt's decision on Broadgate is due in about two months' time, after submissions from British Land, the local authority and other interested parties.

A spokesman for William Hill said this was the first time it had offered odds in a listing case. "We believe this decision will be as difficult to call as a photofinish but English Heritage needs to upset the odds to come out on top."

The City of London Corporation had approved British Land's 700,000 sq ft scheme, and building was to start this summer, with UBS planning to move in by 2014. The corporation's policy chairman, Stuart Fraser, is due to meet communities secretary Eric Pickles next week to lobby for the UBS building. He said: "The Broadgate buildings aren't worth preserving or listing. They aren't of great architectural merit. Listing Broadgate will send out the wrong message. UBS would probably give up. Eric Pickles is very keen on bureaucracy not getting in the way of economic development."

Catherine Croft, director of heritage group The Twentieth Century Society, which is campaigning in favour of listing, expressed surprise at the odds. "I think it is fairly extraordinary because it suggests that William Hill thinks factors other than the accepted criteria [for listing] may affect the minister's decision," she told weekly trade paper Building Design.

"City boys do like gambling of course but Hunt needs to make his decision on the basis of architectural and historic interest. It would be very wrong for him to be affected by any other factor."

Croft added that she believed there were many other locations in the City suitable for the proposed UBS building, which has been designed by one of the architects responsible for the Gherkin, Ken Shuttleworth of Make Architects.

The planned building, at 5 Broadgate, would boast four trading floors each capable of holding 750 traders and has been described by Shuttleworth as an "engine of finance" with a design resembling an immense machine-tooled block of aluminium.

A spokesman for Hunt's Department of Culture, Media and Sport, noted that it was responsible for regulating both heritage and gambling. "It is always good to see two areas of DCMS come together but, as we always say when it comes to gambling, don't bet more than you can afford to lose," he said.

Julia Kollewe

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Gherkin architect declares end of London skyscraper boom

The Sheet — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:25:05 +0000

Heron Tower and Shard to be among the last of iconic buildings as austerity drive ushers in the era of 'ground-scrapers'

Just as the distinctively named Shard of Glass, the Helter Skelter, the Cheese- grater and the Walkie Talkie are being erected across the City, the architect who created the eye-catching Gherkin has declared the London skyscraper building boom is nearing its end.

"The age of bling is over," said Ken Shuttleworth, the architect who led the team at Norman Foster's firm that designed the Gherkin. The 40-storey tower, which opened in 2004, would never get off the ground now, he claimed. "Money now drives everything, so if you can build something for half the price, you will." Tenants are demanding "austere and efficient" buildings that were more likely to be "ground-scrapers" than high-rises, he said. "The tall glass box is dead."

His outspoken remarks do not resonate with everyone at a time when London is witnessing a boom in towering buildings as developers capitalise on a projected surge in office rents. Last week Deutsche Bank suggested that rents in the centre of London could hit record levels by the end of 2013.

The Heron tower, which stands in Bishopsgate next to Liverpool Street station, has just opened, while several other towers are under development, including the Pinnacle, which is also in Bishopsgate.

"You need tall buildings not only for sustainability reasons, but because the population is increasing," said Kamran Moazami, the lead structural engineer on London Bridge's Shard and head of structural engineering at WSP Cantor Seinuk. As well as the office towers in the city going up, he also pointed to a number of residential tower schemes to show that the market for tall buildings remains in rude health.

Figures from Emap Glenigan, a construction information service, also suggest that there are plenty of new tower buildings on the way. There are 49 projects of more than 40 floors in the development pipeline in the UK, with just 10 on site. Of the 49, around a third got planning approval before the recession began, and about half have not yet secured planning permission.

Tall buildings cost more to build than low-rise structures with the same amount of space, prompting some developers to go for smaller projects. At the same time, many tenants are reluctant to pay a premium for being in a tower as belt-tightening continues.

Property tycoon Gerald Ronson recently admitted that it will take about 18 months to let all the space in his Heron Tower, with the lower floors going for about £55 a sq ft while the top floors will command more. Rents in the City today are around the same level as in the 1980s.

The towers now under construction in the City were largely conceived before the financial crisis took hold, with developers obtaining planning permission before the credit crunch. The projects were then mothballed due to a lack of finance.

"I doubt we have seen the last application to build a tall building in the City although, at present, there is greater enthusiasm for lower developments – such as the one approved at 5 Broadgate on Tuesday – or for the retro-fitting of existing buildings," said Peter Rees, the City of London's planning officer. The 5 Broadgate plan, which is for investment bank UBS and designed by Shuttleworth's Make Architects, is in some respects a typical example of what the Shuttleworth means. The 13-storey building will not be glazed all the way around in the manner of traditional city office blocks. Its cladding will instead have a gun metal finish and will provide only "muted reflections of the neighbouring buildings and spaces".

But despite Shuttleworth's insistence that "bling" is out amid a new age of austerity, developer British Land still insists that it wants to create "a stunning piece of architecture" with its plans for Broadgate.

Outside the City, a global surge in skyscraper construction is also showing no signs of coming to a halt. "Tall buildings, once almost exclusively a product of North America, are spreading across the globe at an ever-increasing rate," says the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, based in Chicago.

There were 602 buildings higher than 200m around the world as of 1 March 2011. There were only 258 in the year 2000, and 146 in 1990.

There are now 342 skyscrapers in Asia, and despite being home to 10% of the world's population, Europe is a laggard, with only 3.7% (22) of the world's tallest buildings.

The United Arab Emirates has 44 buildings over 200m in height. For a country of 4.7 million people, this means that there are only 100,000 citizens for every 200m-plus building. In contrast, China has nearly seven million citizens for every 200m-plus building.

With demand for office space in the City of London on the rise, developers will have to find a way to build out if they decide not to build up.

Assuming that banks and other financial firms will be taking on 11,500 new staff over the next three years as the economy recovers, BNP Paribas Real Estate estimates that they will need an additional 1.6m sq ft of space – equivalent to four Shards or five Heron Towers. Its research shows that typical take-up in the City is 3.1m sq ft every year, and the banks' expansion will mean extra requirements of about 550,000 sq ft a year up to 2014.

"You have to maximise the space," says Moazami. "Low rises are a disaster"

Julia Kollewe

Alex Hawkes

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Tallest skyscraper by a British Architect tops out in China

The Sheet — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 00:06:04 +0000

Sir Terry Farrell said fast-growing China gives British architects and engineers an opportunity to capitalise on their expertise

British architecture is about to hit a new high with the "topping out" of a record-breaking 441-metre (1,440ft) tower in south China's finance capital.

The 100-storey Kingkey Finance Tower, based in the city of Shenzhen, is part of a 417,000 square metre office, retail, entertainment, apartment and hotel complex. It will rank as the tallest building ever designed by a British architect and will tower over anything seen in the UK.

The Shenzhen structure is nearly twice the height of 1 Canada Square, the Canary Wharf tower block that is Britain's tallest building. It is also much taller than the Shard of Glass, the 310m-high development near London Bridge that will be the top dog in the UK capital when it is completed.

These claims to fame will see the architect, Sir Terry Farrell, adding another landmark to a portfolio which includes a host of high-profile projects such as the MI6 headquarters, known in the intelligence community as "Babylon-on-Thames".

The tower is the eighth-tallest building in the world, with apartments covering 210,000 square metres and 173,000 square metres given to office space. The bottom six floors will be shops, while the 28 upper floors will be occupied by a five-star St Regis hotel, complete with conference centre. The tower is topped off with a five-storey "sky garden", complete with a variety of restaurants.

"I've always been fascinated by mixed-use developments and that's the key here," said 71-year-old Farrell.

"It will be like an urban district, a market square where you can congregate, meet people and have a coffee. I love the liveliness and the buzz of mixed-use areas, which draw in people for a variety of reasons. Mono-use developments feel dead and just don't work," he added.

Farrell said that the phenomenal growth of China gave British architects and engineers – and, in turn, the struggling UK economy – a clear opportunity to boost their coffers.

"It's often said you go to America for its can-do attitude, the far east for application and detail and Europe for design and imagination – and I think that's still true. There's definitely demand for British architectural and engineering expertise in planning in China," Farrell said.

In fact Farrell, who was behind the redevelopment of the South Bank, Covent Garden and Charing Cross station – and is redeveloping the Earl's Court exhibition centre and regenerating Holborn, Bloomsbury and St Giles in central London, is already working on another even taller building in China.

Last month, his firm TFP Farrells was appointed to help design the Z15 Tower, which will come in at more than 500 metres, or 120 storeys tall.

Farrell, who has a Chinese wife, studied architecture at Newcastle University and city planning at the University of Pennsylvania.

Tom Bawden

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