Kaleidoscope, PLP Architecture’s dynamic new office building in the City of London, has been completed on a high-profile site next to Smithfield Market. The colourful structure will become Tiktok’s new UK Headquarters and includes 5,500sqm of modern and efficient office space with a WiredScore Platinum rating and outstanding views out over the surrounding historic neighbourhood.

PLP Labs, Centric Lab and Comuzi have launched Know Your Health, an online tool and downloadable guide to help people living in cities identify how their environment is impacting their health, and then empower them to improve their situation and long-term health resilience as individuals and a community.

PLP Labs have published ‘This changes everything’, an in-depth exploration into the future of the built environment in a post-pandemic world.

On Monday 28th September, PLP Labs co-hosted the online event ‘Fair Cities: Race and Space’. The virtual roundtable brought together a group of key thinkers and decision makers from across the built environment sector, as well as experts on inequalities and race, to discuss the key issues around ethnicity, inequality and the urban environment and what the built environment community needs to be doing better.

Partner Karl Sharro delivered a keynote talk about his ongoing research project on the rapid urbanisation in the Middle East on ArchNet last week. This research will culminate in a publication looking at the phenomenal urban changes the region has experienced in the past 30 – 40 years as well as the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for citizens, architects and urbanists alike. Karl has worked on numerous projects across the Middle East and regularly contributes to television programmes on architecture and urbanism. His idea for a ‘1000 Mile-City’ along the East Mediterranean coast was broadcast on the BBC’s This Week’s World as part of the ‘Think Again’ strand, exploring radical ideas for the future. In 2016, he published a volume on Islamic Architecture as part of the ‘In Defence of Style’ series.

PLP Architecture is designing an innovative new smart headquarters for Yandex, the global technology leader, in the Gagarinsky District of Moscow. The inclusive, 170,000m2 campus will enable staff to have a healthy and sustainable place for seamless work and recreation, a space for inspiration and fun that will integrate technology with materiality to inspire new ideas and refined ways of working. The campus will be a striking yet sensitive addition to the city’s skyline, sitting on a prominent site near the Moskva River a short distance from the some of the city’s leading research institutions and the location of the company’s first office.

PLP Architecture is working with Native Land to create Bankside Yards, a vibrant new destination on London’s riverside between the Tate Modern and Southbank Centre.

PLP Labs, in collaboration with UCL Design Computation Lab and digital artist Yiyun Kang, was invited to participate at the 8th edition of the Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism held at the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Planning in Shenzhen.

The Collective Stratford has received a resolution to grant planning permission from the London Legacy Development Corporation. The 22-storey scheme will feature short-stay co-living rooms, a community and events hub as well as affordable workspace for small businesses and local entrepreneurs. Plans for The Collective Stratford High Street were developed following extensive engagement with local businesses and community organisations to ensure the scheme meets their needs and is well integrated into the local area.

PLP Architecture and the developer Provast have won a major international competition for a new tower on a key redevelopment site in Rotterdam. The project, dubbed “Tree House,” focusses on creating a lively, inspiring, open and sustainable environment for residents and visitors in the city centre. At 140-meters and 37 storeys tall, the building will sit next to the Central Station as the tallest hybrid structure in the country and will be a bold new addition to the local area.

PLP Architecture Partner Midori Ainoura spoke to Mapiq about the future of work and the role technology is playing in it. She addressed three thought-provoking statements about the future of smart offices with her unique insight. Midori helps lead PLP’s innovation in workplace design and strategy through her architecture and pioneering work with PLP Labs, and regularly speaks on the topic around the world. She was a driving force behind The Edge in Amsterdam, which was designed as the world’s smartest and most sustainable office building.

COIMA City Lab, a think tank focussed on the research and development of sustainable urban regeneration projects, today presented its first charter “Undertaking for Great Cities”, which sets measurable standards and establishes guidelines for sustainable urban regeneration in Milan.

A new book on culture in developments, co-authored by PLP director Hala El Akl, was unveiled last week at the London City Hall. Aimed at developers, the guide “Including Culture in Development – A Step by Step Guide” sets out to help improve the creation and integration of quality public art and cultural infrastructure within development.

PLP Architecture have co-authored a report published today by Knight Frank, the Senior Living Survey, which explores the current state and the future of Later Living from the perspective of designers, investors and seniors themselves.

PLP Architecture’s models are on display at the Royal Academy of Arts’ Summer Exhibition, which will be open to the public until the 12th August. Visitors will get to experience two of PLP’s projects, Timber Vortex (The Hague) and The Strands (Oman). The models join an outstanding selection of architectural works in the RA’s Large Weston Room, curated by architect Spencer de Grey RA. This year’s curation revolves around humankind’s impact on the natural world and investigates how architects have responded to the imminent environmental catastrophe.

PLP Architecture was one of the trailblazer practices that helped put together the Modern Apprenticeship Standard for Architecture. We are excited to be offering a level 7 Architectural Apprenticeship Programme (equivalent) to RIBA Part 2 & 3) for potential candidates who want to become architects.

The tallest building in the City of London has ceremoniously topped out, celebrating reaching its highest point in the structure of 294.520mAOD. Representatives from across the project team, including Multiplex, AXA IM – Real Assets, on behalf of an international consortium of investors, Lipton Rogers Developments and PLP Architecture attended the ceremony on Friday to mark this significant milestone for the project.

‘Forget tech, what about the humans?’ PLP’s Hala El Akl spoke at the MIT World Real Estate Forum as part of a panel discussion on the human dimensions of technological growth in our cities. A huge thanks to panel moderator Marie Puyaraud (JLL) and fellow speakers Jeroen de Swart (EDGE Technologies), Kate Langan (ANZ), Peter Prischl (eFM) and to the MIT Center for Real Estate.

PLP has launched PLP Labs, a new advisory and research group that will develop concepts and technologies to make the built environment more integrated with emerging technologies, more user-conscious and better equipped to fight climate change.

PLP Senior Associate Partner, Tina Qiu, was interviewed by Insider Trends magazine on the future of retail design. How can trends in design be reconciled with longevity and adaptability of space? Can constrictions in the brief instigate creative responses? And is their a vision for the future that helps guide our designs? Tina, architect and designer for the shell and core the new Adidas flagship store on Oxford Street, which will open later in the year, answers these questions and others.

PLP Architecture’s proposal for the extension of Krea University in India, has been successful in an invited international design competition.

In a joint venture with Newcastle University, we are pleased to announce the first year of student applications for the Gavin Eldred and PLP Architecture Bursary. Gavin Eldred, 1965 – 2017, earned his degree in Architecture at Newcastle University. Passionate about architecture, Gavin worked to support his studies. He travelled to New Zealand to practice, and after settling in London became a Director at PLP Architecture. Among the significant built work that Gavin helped deliver are The Four Seasons Hotel in Abu Dhabi; NOVA-Victoria in Westminster; and 22 Bishopsgate, the tallest office tower in the City of London. In honour of Gavin’s love for life and Architecture, PLP Architecture will offer a bursary in the amount of £2500 to one student, to encourage the study of Architecture. The bursary will be awarded in four consecutive years to four different students.

The construction of Tower Ten, the new expansion of the World Trade Centre Amsterdam, officially began last week at a Ground Breaking Ceremony launched by deputy director Sandra Thesing of the City of Amsterdam and Ronald van der Waals of CBRE Global Investors, the Fund Manager of the Fund that owns the building in the Zuidas central business district.

Karl Sharro, PLP Partner, presented research on Gulf urbanism in a keynote speech at Dubai Design Week. The discussion illustrated our ideas about the future development of cities in the region, and how technological development can have a bold influence on interaction, movement, culture, learning, the workplace and living. Arab cities today face serious challenges, but they also have huge potential. We have been working on a piece of research, leading to the first in a series of publications, The New Arab City – Volume 1: The Gulf.

PLP Partner and President, Lee Polisano was interviewed by Elizabeth Hopkirk for Building Magazine. The cover story delves into Lee’s history, motivations, hobbies, and aspirations for the future, as well as discussing TwentyTwo Bishopsgate, currently under construction and the tallest structure in the emerging cluster of towers in the City of London.

The Telegraph reports today on the unique interiors of our new residential development for Lodha in Bloomsbury. The building will open at the end of the year, and will offer 230 apartments with amenities for residents, and a landscaped courtyard with communal gardens. The interior design team comprises Bowler James Brindley, and the Spanish designer, Patricia Urquiola – it is her debut residential project in London.

The second of PLP Architecture’s Metropolitan Reflections series was held at the Arts Club in Central London yesterday. The event focussed on the changing nature of work and brought together 10 leading voices in the field. It featured a keynote address from Dr Carl Benedikt Frey, Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment at the University of Oxford.

PLP Architecture is designing an innovative new smart headquarters for Yandex, the global technology leader, in the Gagarinsky District of Moscow. The inclusive, 170,000m2 campus will enable staff to have a healthy and sustainable place for seamless work and recreation, a space for inspiration and fun that will integrate technology with materiality to inspire new ideas and refined ways of working. The campus will be a striking yet sensitive addition to the city’s skyline, sitting on a prominent site near the Moskva River a short distance from the some of the city’s leading research institutions and the location of the company’s first office.

Corso Como Place in Milan, designed by PLP Architecture, was presented today to an audience in Milan at a well anticipated and attended launch event. Manfredi Catella, Founder and CEO of COIMA SGR, client for the project, explained the motivations for the scheme in the wider context of the Porta Nuova masterplan, which aims to connect a new series of developments with high quality public and community spaces.

Karl delivers a regular feed of satirical musings on middle-east politics and culture to his 135,000 followers on a daily basis @KarlreMarks. His posts have recently been collected and published in And Then God Created The Middle East and said ‘Let There Be Breaking News’.