Our changing skyline

According to New London Architecture, over 200 tall buildings of at least 20 storeys are currently under construction or in the pipeline for the capital.

While the majority of these buildings are residential, of those planned for commercial use, office towers represent the lion’s share — are we entering a new wave of high-rise office buildings in London? Historically, permission to build upwards in London has been met with constraints. These largely revolve around planning and protected views of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Canary Wharf’s development prompted the City and the rest of London to respond by imposing planning zones where new tall buildings may be appropriate, leading to The Shard, Heron Tower, and the wave of office towers that are Broadgate Tower, Leadenhall, and 20 Fenchurch Street.

With land in central London at a premium, building up has some merit in terms of making the most of the limited space available. According to the Greater London Authority (GLA) an estimated 600 applications for tall buildings have been referred to the Mayor in the previous six years, a third of which have been approved. One of the drivers behind the acceleration of tall building applications is their prestige appeal and the resulting pulling power in attracting leading global firms to the city.

We’re also seeing a rise in the popularity of the mixed-use tower, such as The Shard — Western Europe’s tallest building and the first truly mixed-use tower in the capital, where we provided cost management and specification consultancy services, amongst others. Mixed-use towers such as this could help meet our growing population needs by increasing both the density of office workers and residents in the city, as well as bring more social activity to the surrounding areas.

However, from our experience of working on buildings of such a scale, we understand that plans to build tall in London are often met with political restrictions, economic limitations and technical challenges. In most cases they also cost more to construct and take longer to develop.

Tall buildings are about increasing the density of development, and in order to work, they need to be built near transport hubs. We’re hopeful that with the development of Crossrail and HS2, the GLA will designate some of the areas surrounding those routes as appropriate for tall buildings.

We believe that modular construction could help to resolve some of these problems and will continue to shape the development of the city’s growing skyline. This form of construction reduces on-site labour levels and can substantially shorten project duration compared to traditional construction methods, leading to lowered overall costs.

The Leadenhall Building, which we provided cost management services, environmental consulting and risk management services for, is a good example of this: 85 per cent of the building was pre-fabricated off-site, contributing to a reduced project delivery timetable. Bigger contractors and developers are thus going down this modular route for cost benefits as well as for reasons of improved safety, and reduced noise and disruption levels.

Too many tall buildings in London could affect the city’s heritage appeal. How the tall building trend is managed, namely the location and height of these buildings, will ultimately fall on the shoulders of the planning system and how tight a grip it places on approving only those buildings which work sympathetically with their surroundings.