Product Spec Sheet

ElementBrandProduct Name
Wall tilesBisazza
LightingXal GmbH
SASSO
Floor tilesCasalgrande Padana
WCDuravit
Handrails and grab barsHEWI
Thermostatic basin mixer tapsTOTO

Product Spec Sheet
Wall tiles
Lighting
SASSO by Xal GmbH
Floor tiles
WC
by Duravit
Handrails and grab bars
by HEWI
Thermostatic basin mixer taps
by TOTO

New Ludgate

Fletcher Priest Architects as Executive Architect

‘New Ludgate’ is the transformation of a City block into a generous and lively new quarter for London. It sets up a dialogue between two striking and complementary new buildings whilst reinstating and improving the public realm around it and new routes through the city block.


It is, in essence, a new piece of city.


It is a site redolent with history. From here the Belle Sauvage coaching inn welcomed or saw off numerous fictional and real travellers; Pocahontas and London’s first live rhinoceros paid visits. Later came railway engineers who put an iron viaduct across Ludgate Hill, and World War II, which left the site in ruins.


The site on the old city wall of Ludgate Hill was formerly home to some outdated 1980s office buildings, the tallest element of which breached Primrose Hill viewing corridor height restrictions, and which offered little in the way of public amenity, with a dull sunken arcade at its lower levels.


Fletcher Priest was asked to masterplan the site by Land Securities, separating it into two headquarter-sized office buildings – 30 Old Bailey to the north, designed by Sauerbruch Hutton with Fletcher Priest as executive architect, and 60 Ludgate Hill, designed by Fletcher Priest.


By creating a new passageway between the two – a route named Belle Sauvage after the 15th century coaching inn that once operated nearby and featured in Pickwick Papers and Tom Brown’s Schooldays – the scheme could also form a new open space at the east that catches the lunchtime sun for office workers and the public alike. The square here – with a nod to precedents in Rome, is defined by façades and plays off an existing terracotta Victorian elevation opposite. This space has been designed with as little of a ‘corporate’ feel as possible.


Around the site, street lines, grades and views are repaired and improved, such as the processional route to the western entrance of St Paul’s.


This, along with much of the massing of the scheme and the curve of the street, was generated by the St Paul’s view corridor, while the main design idea was to reinstate the connection of old City lanes from Farringdon, building on a site that is steeped in history and where the Fleet River used to flow.


The 165,000 sq ft One New Ludgate building itself comprises nine storeys plus ground floors. It is animated by and bars and retail outlets under fixed white glass awnings The building uses a façade concept of a masonry grid that keeps off direct sunlight and throws light onto the floorplates and, when viewed obliquely from the street’s wide pavements, gives a solidity to the building. ‘We wanted something quite cool and modern, whereas the other building may be more playful’, says Barton.


White precast concrete frames, simply detailed, respect their neighbours and set off the floor-to-ceiling low-ion glazing, while vivid amber ‘Kathedral’ glass fins are used on the piazzetta ‘accent’ façade in the new public space, where a mature tree provides shade and visual link for Belle Sauvage. A floating plane of photovoltaic cells lines the roofscape along with plant and a green roof, while both buildings flank a still-operating two and a half-storey city electrical interchange, which allows light into the heart of the site.


One New Ludgate also boasts extensive private external space, accessible from every office floor. This includes set-back loggia and balconies and a substantial south-facing terrace with uninterrupted views of St Paul’s which is capable of accommodating 300 people at the fifth floor set-back level, landscaped as elsewhere by Gustafson Porter.


Retail and restaurants line the ground floor, reinstated at grade, while the passageway’s York stone paving morphs from standard yorkstone into dark granite to draw pedestrians through. In terms of sustainability, both buildings are BREEAM ‘Excellent’, influenced mainly in 60 Ludgate Hill’s case by the amount of daylighting it has been designed to achieve, reducing the need for artificial light on the office floors.


The collaboration helped the planning and letting process with both teams appearing at committee and helping to achieve a relatively straight forward passage through the planning system. There were a lot of gains for the city including the repair of the public realm wider pavements, the new element of public space, and the reinstatement of the St Paul’s viewing heights so that the breach was taken away.

New Ludgate

Gustafson Porter + Bowman as Landscape Architects

The public realm landscape of 1 & 2 New Ludgate ties the new development seamlessly into the surrounding urban fabric and character. Fine landscape details and finishes reinforce the smooth transition and facilitate the use of this new public space in a tight urban site. A new piazza marks the entrance to a passageway linking OId Bailey with Limeburner Lane. Many similar passageways are hidden in the City of London, creating unexpected and wonderful shortcuts. The new route marks a transition from the traditional City of London Yorkstone towards an unusual dark granite. Gustafson Porter created a bold geometric paving pattern that leads pedestrians to a new focal point at the centre of the piazza. The centrepiece is a mature Tulip tree surrounded by solid granite seating which has been developed as an extension of the paving pattern. The positioning of street furniture and trees increases the sense of space and creates a new meeting and gathering place in the lively City.


The development’s substantial south-facing roof terrace on the fifth floor basks in day-long sunlight. The curvilinear white Corian bench provides generous seating. Its form wraps around the edges of the terrace, growing in height and allowing ample soil depth for the intensive planting scheme. The gently undulating landform is planted with colourful bands of perennial plants mixed with ornamental grasses in loose, natural arrangements. Plants are grouped together according to colour and form. Bands of yellow flowering evergreen Euphorbias contrast with the tall blue flowering spikes of Erynginum, Echinopsis and Aster; low hummocks of flowering Thyme are seen against the towering purple balls of Alliums, all framed by the plumes of tall ornamental grasses. Using a mix of low and taller perennials and grasses provides a natural permeable boundary that allows spectacular views to St Paul’s and the City of London beyond

Two New Ludgate

Sauerbruch Hutton as Architects

This 30,000 m2 building is one of two new developments within a single block in the City of London. Located opposite the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court and close to St Paul’s Cathedral, it offers nine floors of office space together with a restaurant and retail areas. Like most buildings in the City, its structure and services allow flexibility of use.

Two New Ludgate differs in two respects, however: firstly through its façades, which are characterised by an array of movable glass louvres whose polychromatic compositions respond to the various surrounding urban spaces, and secondly, in that the building is set apart by its organic figure. This redefines the canyon-like space of Limeburner Lane with a full, curved form that sweeps into a rounded bow at its northern end to resonate with the dome of the Old Bailey, creating a distinctive address and entrance situation. A gentle concave curve in the east adds generosity to the otherwise narrow street and culminates in a tall and dramatic elevation that addresses a small square to the south, marks a public right of way and initiates a series of cranked façades that zigzag from east to west across the interior of the block. Along the street, neutral and warm colours harmonise with the Portland stone of the older neighbours.

As a coloured body in a historical context, the urban entity of Two New Ludgate succeeds in establishing a relationship to its surroundings that reconciles conformity with uniqueness.

Awards: City of London Building of the Year Award 2016

 

Material Used:
1. Facade cladding: Gartner, Switzerland  
2. Fritted glass louvers (designed by Sauerbruch Hutton): BGT Bischoff Glass Technik AG
3. Flooring: Jura stone (supplied by Franken Schotter)
4. Wall cladding: Portland stone "Portland JordansBasebed" (supplied by Albion Stone)
5. Wall tiles: Opus Romano by Bisazza
6. Floor tiles: CasalgrandePadana
7. Lighting: SASSO by XAL Xenon Architectural Lighting 
8. Thermostatic basin mixer taps: by TOTO Europe GmbH
9. WC: Starck 2, Duravit
10. Under counter basins: Starck 3, Duravit
11. Handrails and grab bars: HEWI

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