The proposal for 133 Houndsditch, which is backed by developer Platform and site owner Northwood Investors, would be Chipperfield’s first new building in the Square Mile. The AJ understands it would also be the practice’s tallest UK scheme to date, rising, at 22 storey, two storeys higher than Hoxton Press, a pair of 16 and 20-storey residential towers in east London it completed in 2018.
According to the public consultation website, the Houndsditch scheme would flatten an existing six-storey 1991 block, which once housed the UK base for Deutsche Bank, on the site opposite Foggo Associates’ ‘Can of Ham’ building.
DCA said in consultation documents the tiered, three-part office building on the eastern edge of the City’s skyscraper cluster would respond to its position by stepping down to the east. The massing, it claimed, is intended to improve daylight for nearby residents, create landscaped terraces and deliver a more generous public realm around the site.
The scheme would retain 133 Houndsditch’s existing basement and foundations in order to reduce embodied carbon compared with a complete demolition and rebuild, reducing construction impacts and whole-life carbon costs. The project team claims 40 per cent of materials will be reused.
Other sustainability features include improvements to the public realm such as a ‘green pedestrian and cycle corridor between Aldgate and Liverpool Street stations’ around the site, and a planted garden at level one, accessed by an escalator.
The development is proposed as an all-electric building in line with the City of London’s evolving sustainability requirements.
If completed, the practice says the project will deliver a ‘state-of-the-art workplace’ that is ‘healthy, accessible and welcoming’, with an active ground floor with commercial and retail uses and ‘three distinct office typologies’ above – potentially allowing for multiple occupiers instead of the current single-occupier design.
A separate environmental scoping opinion submitted to the City of London alongside the public consultation indicates the development could provide around 46,000m² of Grade A office accommodation alongside approximately 1,220m² of retail, community and amenity space.
The existing six-storey building was designed by GMW Architects 35 years ago as Deutsche Bank’s London headquarters before the German bank relocated to a WilkinsonEyre-designed office at 21 Moorfields.
DCA said in consultation documents that the existing building is ‘outdated’ and had ‘reached the end of its commercial life, limiting its efficiency and detracting from the local area’.
The consultation comes after initial plans were unveiled in April. A planning application to the City of London Corporation is expected later this year and the existing building is due to become fully vacant in 2029.