“Employment is one of the key routes to accessing income, which, in turn, is the pathway to many wellbeing factors, such as healthcare, self-care, nourishment, housing, mobility and security. Therefore, it is imperative that, as a society, we create an ecosystem that supports people through the employment life cycle.”
The use of timber as a structural material in tall buildings is an area of emerging interest for its variety of potential benefits; the most obvious being that it is a renewable resource, unlike prevailing construction methods which use concrete and steel. The research is also investigating other potential benefits, such as reduced costs and improved construction timescales, increased fire resistance, and significant reduction in the overall weight of buildings. The conceptual proposals currently being developed would create over 1,000 new residential units in a 1 million sq ft mixed-use tower and mid-rise terraces in central London, integrated within the Barbican.
Thinkspace is an integrated education and research facility at Imperial College’s White City Campus. It sits within a larger master plan that has created a vibrant mixed-use urban quarter, integrating academic programme with office, retail, hotel and residential uses in an inclusive, welcoming and publicly-accessible environment.
Located on a prominent site at the intersection of Holborn Viaduct and Farringdon Street, the thirteen-storey building will deliver a world class sustainable, adaptable, and healthy new workplace environment, capable of accommodating single or multiple tenancies. At the heart of the design approach is the understanding that human comfort and wellbeing are paramount to creating sustainable environments that enhance people’s health, foster creativity and spark innovation.
Friars Bridge Court will be a major new 21 storey office led development at the northern end of Blackfriars Road in Southwark. The building will replace an existing office building dating from 1991 to create an environment that envisions new ways of working, and is defined by generous amenity spaces including a gallery and two large roof terraces with sweeping views across London and The Thames. Whilst the southern half of Blackfriars Road is characterised by buildings of fairly uniform height, the northern half has a more varied street wall, culminating in a series of object towers towards its northern terminus. Our building sits between these two conditions, and is designed to strengthen the end of the block in which its sits and announce through its scale the transition to the more singular buildings towards the river.
Sitting to the north of one of London’s busiest transport interchanges, our masterplan and three dynamic new buildings has regenerated and reinvigorated an important island site in Westminster. The development includes a sustainable balance of uses like offices, retail, residential and a community space / library alongside an extensive new public realm. It also responds to the adjoining areas of historic, civic and political significance, including Grosvenor Gardens and the Royal Parks and Westminster Cathedral Conservation Areas.
The recently opened One Bishopsgate Plaza marks the completion of a mixed-use masterplan that originated with the adjacent Heron Tower to the south. The masterplan envisioned a new City of London, moving away from the mono-culture of the office towards a rich aggregate of different uses that brings together hospitality, residential, amenity spaces, new types of retail as well as innovative public realm and place making.
Our new headquarters building for Clivedale Ventures at 73 Brook Street replaces a 1970s red granite property with a new structure sympathetic in its expression to its setting within the Georgian terrace and the Mayfair Conservation Area. The site, on a prominent route to the new Crossrail Bond Street Station from Grosvenor Square, forms part of an entry sequence into Mayfair.
The redevelopment of Westferry Printworks represents a major milestone in the transformation of the Isle of Dogs from its industrial past towards a future as a dynamic, mixed-use waterfront district. Spanning 6.15 hectares, this brownfield site will be regenerated into a neighbourhood that seamlessly blends residential, educational, and communal spaces, fostering connectivity and sustainability. The thirteen buildings on site, ranging from 4 to 31 storeys, have been carefully designed to both optimise housing allocation whilst fitting within local development plans.
Wearables in the Workplace investigated how wearable technologies, such as fitness wristbands and posture scanners, can be used to monitor occupant health and wellbeing in office environments. It considered the current state of wearable technologies, explored possible future uses and applications, and also examined how this all could impact the wider technology industry, workplaces, individual health and wellbeing, and the built environment. To help augment the research, PLP Labs ran an in-house pilot study in which wearables were used to monitor test subjects’ vital signs across different office and home-working scenarios.