0:04 one of the building types that has been
0:07 most identified with con Peterson Fox is
0:09 the urban high-rise commercial office
0:12 building our aspiration from the
0:15 earliest days was to find ways for these
0:17 buildings to be able to create a more
0:21 social interaction with the cities with
0:22 that they inhabited tall building and
0:25 its role within the city uh is like the
0:27 role of an individual at a cocktail
0:31 party to have a good cocktail party
0:34 the individuals can't stand isolated
0:37 from each other without generating some
0:39 form of conversation right tall
0:42 buildings need to find a way to respond
0:45 to their context the site is in the
0:47 heart of the insurance District which is
0:48 surrounded by Lloyds of London it's the
0:50 sort of primary Insurance building that
0:52 the world knows the Willis building as
0:53 well on the other side of leev Hall
0:55 Street you've got the cheese grater and
0:57 the girkin but the site that we've got
1:00 is sort of critical mass where Insurance
1:03 buildings come together just to the
1:05 north of the building there is a there
1:08 is a listed church and some lower fads
1:10 to the to the west and to the South
1:12 there are larger buildings and so the
1:14 building folds like an origami paper
1:16 sculpture or a sort of crystalline form
1:19 in order to have shoulders and ribs that
1:22 refer to the surroundings Our intention
1:24 was always to speak to all of the
1:26 surrounding buildings but also create
1:28 open space for them to all exist
1:30 separately so whilst the buildings are
1:33 very very close together there's always
1:35 this space to allow each one to breathe
1:37 in its own
1:39 right so there's a dynamic view the
1:41 local authorities consider when they're
1:42 considering tall buildings in the city
1:44 how the Dome of St Paul's is viewed
1:46 along about a mile stretch of Fleet
1:49 Street what the scalpel does is actually
1:51 lean into and hides behind the Dome
1:54 informing the overall massing and design
1:55 of this
1:58 building something of this scale and
2:00 with such a pure shape needed a simple
2:02 material palette on the outside the idea
2:05 was to create a really tort skin with a
2:08 very defined profile from long distance
2:09 and close
2:12 up so we spent a lot of time considering
2:14 how best to integrate the Woodford
2:16 stones into the building they represent
2:19 air sea land and fire it's what
2:22 insurance people insured against and
2:24 that's really why they were installed
2:25 originally on the top of the stair
2:27 Towers to the original 1950s Lloyds
2:29 building they're part of the rich
2:31 history of insurance on the site they've
2:33 informed the way in which our ground
2:36 floor works there's a sculptural stair
2:39 that's behind the main wall in the
2:42 reception conceived as a monolithic
2:44 stone sculpture in itself but we
2:46 designed it so that everything looks
2:48 like it's heun out of one block the idea
2:50 was to convey a feeling of solidity
2:52 inside the building as a foil to this
2:54 kind of gossam or
2:57 exterior this language emerged as a
3:00 result of the nature of this contact
3:03 that's what we always try to do [Music]
Chrome Extension