{"id":730316,"date":"2024-03-04T06:00:45","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T06:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/?p=730316"},"modified":"2024-03-04T08:51:33","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T08:51:33","slug":"over-the-top-wilkinsoneyres-tube-station-spanning-bank-hq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/specification\/over-the-top-wilkinsoneyres-tube-station-spanning-bank-hq","title":{"rendered":"Over the top: WilkinsonEyre\u2019s tube station-spanning bank HQ"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not often a practice designs an office block that acts as a giant bridge spanning a tube station. And then expresses its highly complex structure through its fa\u00e7ade. But that is exactly what has been accomplished at WilkinsonEyre\u2019s most recent project, 21 Moorfields, which sits on a site that stretches from Moorgate to the Barbican.<\/p>\n

Scheduled to be fully occupied in April this year, becoming the new London headquarters for Deutsche Bank, 21 Moorfields incorporates football field-sized trading floors, office space, restaurants, retail units, six roof terraces and a multi-level fitness centre.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The scheme is arranged as two buildings around a public square, connected by a podium, with Moorgate Underground station\u2019s new Elizabeth Line ticket hall, also designed by WilkinsonEyre, beneath. The public realm has been reconfigured to create a direct line of sight between the Barbican and Moorgate.<\/p>\n

WilkinsonEyre, which has a celebrated portfolio of bridges and stations, was approached directly by developer Landsec 12 years ago to replace a 1960s building above Moorgate Underground station. It had in its lifetime benefited from sharing its structure with the station below but this stratagem wasn\u2019t available to WilkinsonEyre, which was now required to design an entirely new structure over the station without disrupting the operation of the tube line for a single day. In response to this challenge a design was developed that uses a column-free, giant truss-like structure.<\/p>\n

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With 2.7m diameters and driven 80m deep, the development\u2019s piles are each \u2018about the size of a tube train\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u2018It\u2019s really a bridge above a station,\u2019 says Giles Martin, a director at the practice.\u00a0 <\/span>He describes how touching the station below, in any way, was \u2018absolutely not an option\u2019, despite their having another team on the Moorgate ticket hall project. \u2018If you break the Circle Line, it costs something like a million pounds a week,\u2019 he says. \u2018We had to span the entire station in one job.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When Crossrail, later renamed the Elizabeth Line, came to the site, it made even more sense to spend the money on creating that big structural jump across the train tracks. Making the site denser was only going to benefit and be benefited by Crossrail.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The site from the outset presented enormous constraints above and below ground. These included proximity to listed buildings and conservation areas, protected views of St Paul\u2019s, rights to light for both the Barbican and Finsbury Circus and, obviously, the presence of live London Underground lines below. This latter contingency limited the space available for new foundations for the development to just 16 piles driven along the north and south perimeters of the site. They were to be the highest-capacity piles ever sunk in the capital. The structural complexities of this engineering feat are celebrated in a series of trusses spanning the 60m of the station and culminating in the eastern elevation\u2019s giant steel truss fa\u00e7ade.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018It all started from a single super-pile,\u2019 says Martin. The concept design began with a column, from which the team had to figure out how to cantilever out to create useable floor space without placing additional structure below the surface. To maximise the scheme\u2019s footprint, the solution was to bridge the steel structure across eight pairs of these giant piles, located at the perimeter of the station complex. Once suitable places were found for them to be located, each splits into three as they head down through the gaps between Crossrail tunnels. They don\u2019t stop until they hit the Thanet Sands layer, London\u2019s 58 million-year-old geological bedrock formation over 50m below ground.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

With 2.7m diameters and driven 80m deep, the piles are \u2018about the size of a tube train\u2019, says Martin. From these foundations, the structure cantilevers 48m in one direction and 12m the other. \u2018It took us a good couple of years to actually work out a diagram that would create a logical expression of both the arch and simplicity of the structure,\u2019 he adds. \u2018We also had to work out what the maximum volume was that we could be put above ground.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, every square foot of lettable space had to count to pay for this highly expensive structure. Because it was so complicated and expensive, the practice ended up preparing three planning applications (all of them approved by the City) just to arrive at a design the client could actually afford to build. \u2018The constraints never really changed. We just found more efficient ways of interpreting them,\u2019 Martin observes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In its basics, the scheme seen today consists of a podium with public squares, walkway and a bridge structure, its large trusses expressed in \u2018shunted\u2019 boxes of varying sizes, depending on where a truss could be squeezed in. Above these are \u2018shards\u2019 of glass (set-back volumes) which are shaped through \u2018nips and tucks\u2019 that maintain views through to the Barbican and St Paul\u2019s. To the rear, a separate, smaller and lower building has been built as a wellness centre, forming a buffer to the Barbican.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When Deutsche Bank came on board the development, WilkinsonEyre was on its second planning application. \u2018They had a very specific brief,\u2019 recalls Martin. \u2018It was easy to incorporate because, by this stage, we knew every constraint and where the super-piles were going to go, so we literally knitted the brief in.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

However, it was, structurally, a headache. \u2018When you put all those constraints together with the programme, you get different constructional requirements or obligations on each grid line,\u2019 he says. The team ended up redesigning the building up to eight times to get it to span the railway tracks successfully. The taller the truss, the more efficient it can be and proportionally less steel is used. \u2018This was developed over years of teasing out how we could make the building work,\u2019 says Martin.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018The most sustainable aspect of this building is its efficiency. We taught ourselves to use less and less\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Working with Australian engineers Robert Bird Group, the idea of creating a temporary bridge over the piles to build the structure off was decided upon. It was a clever solution, as it was impossible to put a crane on the site in such constrained conditions.<\/p>\n

Then there was the question of the fa\u00e7ade, which had to incorporate several highly complex elements, one of them being the nature of those massive trusses. \u2018It has become the motif,\u2019 says Martin. \u2018We could have put the truss inside the building,\u2019 he notes but, instead, the truss itself has become the main, eastern fa\u00e7ade, expressing, in a sense, the \u2018engineering prowess\u2019 of Crossrail. One of the reasons it sits to the outside of the building, however, is because it would have proved too complicated to bring partitions up to the fa\u00e7ade internally, particularly with large diagonal steels going through the wall. By pushing it to the outside, the team was able to design a column-free space inside.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The bolted steels are expressed aesthetically and were tested extensively through large-scale mock-ups. \u2018We had to govern everything, down to every individual bolt,\u2019 says Martin.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Decisions such as these also had to be made well in advance. \u2018About a year before you\u2019re making any other aesthetic design choices,\u2019 Martin notes. \u2018I guess it\u2019s the same if you\u2019re designing a bridge \u2026 you\u2019ve got to think about the components, too.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

With most office buildings, the steel structure isn\u2019t necessarily on show, but here it is and so the practice had to get every little piece right. \u2018It was great fun,\u2019 Martin insists. \u2018Except everything was scaled up massively.\u2019<\/p>\n

But what about the sustainability of these giant steel trusses? \u2018We had to think about these elements 10 years ago and, since then, fa\u00e7ade technologies have changed, so in many ways it\u2019s an old design,\u2019 he says. \u2018But, of course, it is designed to last forever. The most sustainable aspect of this building is its efficiency. We taught ourselves to use less and less \u2026 and we had so long to look at it.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As well as on the main fa\u00e7ade, the trusses have created moments of architecture within themselves, too. Martin compares the experience of the trusses up\u2011close to walking Scotland\u2019s Forth Bridge. Collaborating with Andy Sturgeon Garden Design, WilkinsonEyre has designed a series of gardens within the odd spaces created where the trusses meet the floor plates and podium. Along with careful lighting these create absorbing pockets of interest, framed by the forms of the steels.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Martin is clearly still enthused by what has been achieved: \u2018Standing at the Barbican looking back [at 21 Moorfields], you can still see the ghost of the structure and the big building behind with the truss in front of it.\u2019 In this expression of its structure, 21 Moorfields nicely harks back to practice founder Chris Wilkinson\u2019s roots in High-Tech.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fran Williams talks to WilkinsonEyre director Giles Martin about 21 Moorfields, the practice\u2019s new 51,000m2 headquarters for Deutsche Bank, which bridges Moorgate station perched on 16 \u2018super-piles\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59337,"featured_media":730350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"ep_exclude_from_search":false},"categories":[721],"tags":[65538,4940,1614],"yoast_head":"\nOver the top: WilkinsonEyre\u2019s tube station-spanning bank HQ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"WilkinsonEyre director Giles Martin talks to Fran Williams about 21 Moorfields, the practice\u2019s new 51,000m2 headquarters for Deutsche Bank, which bridges Moorgate station perched on 16 \u2018super-piles\u2019\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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