Principal Place, Foster + Partners, London, UK.
At 175 metres, Principal Tower will be one of London’s tallest residential structures. It is the iconic apartment tower within Principal Place, a new mixed-use development on the City of London’s outskirts in the Hackney district.
Design philosophies
The tower’s massing, which resembles three thin volumes, expresses the connection between Britain’s financial centre and the creative, formerly industrial east end. From the ground up, the tower appears smaller when it faces the Shoreditch residential neighbourhood, while from the west, it represents the City’s high-rise character. Between the two, a core volume rises upward, creating a beautiful landmark on the skyline.
The Foster + Partners building comprises a 50-story residential tower and a 15-story office building that houses Amazon’s London headquarters. It also has six restaurants that wrap around the building at street level and a light bar, giving it a 360-degree active frontage that extends the City’s energy to the north.
Design concept
There are many apartment sizes available in the 50-story skyscraper, which is topped by a single, magnificent duplex penthouse. There are four two-bedroom apartments and four one-bedroom flats on a typical level, all of which were thoughtfully designed from the inside out and the outside in. The one- and two-bedroom homes downstairs are combined to create three-bedroom homes on the upper levels. There are also penthouses at the top with custom floor plans. The design idea combines Shoreditch’s artistic, industrial look with the financial district’s traditional refinement.
As per Grant Brooker, director at Foster + Partners, it was created especially for this site; the architecture and form of the buildings are unique to the space they occupy, and it would not have been constructed in any other part of the city. Principal Tower is made up of three volumes of various sizes that are grouped in a cruciform shape with fewer than 25 metres on each side. The physical limitations of the site required a small footprint. Existing structures and the railroad lines of the nearby Liverpool Street train station encircle it.
Planning
To produce a cruciform layout, the rectilinear floor plate was extended on both sides. By maximising the perimeter in this way, nearly all of the units are dual aspect, giving every household a generous sense of space and light. Layouts maximise the living space with an effective, simple design that centres the entry in the room to avoid unused passageways. For privacy, the bedrooms are encased by solid cladding panels, while the rest of the building is entirely glass and shaded by fins. On the outside, this helps to soften the tower’s shape, and contrast and set it out from the City’s office towers. Nearly every residence has its own curved balcony with bronze exterior decoration. The balconies are accessible through floor-to-ceiling glazing that frames views of the city and were made feasible by the eight corners of the tower’s cross-shaped layout.
The smallest of the three blocks was placed facing Shoreditch, a neighbourhood that is primarily residential, while the middle-sized volume is situated closer to the high-rise structures in the City of London. While Foster + Partners placed the tallest building between them which is 162-meter-tall.
The first-floor residents’ gym has a sliding glass façade that opens onto the plaza. The swimming pool shares a similar connection with the streetscape thanks to views of a renovated building and a spa pool incorporated into the window’s curve. The residents’ bar is concealed behind a metal fence that resembles a ribbon and is situated on a mezzanine overlooking the plaza’s activity.
The office building contains Amazon’s UK headquarters and offers 85,000 square metres of flexible, high-end office space. The building’s main entrance leads out onto a brand-new plaza, establishing an active interface with the neighbourhood’s urban environment and a gathering spot for the locals. Internally, the structure is envisioned as a modern warehouse that offers a more flexible and engaging workspace in response to how the workplace is developing. The cutting-edge office levels, which span more than 100 metres, provide an intriguing mix of spaces that work at various scales, ranging from enormous open-plan rooms to small pockets of space that foster cooperation and creativity.
Materials
Both interiors and architecture have been designed by Foster + Partners. The material’s palette blends light wood floors, white marble, and opulent bronze accents to make use of the light and space given by the deep windows and direct the eye to panoramic views of the river and city.
With an expressive bronze structural frame that alludes to the old cast-iron constructions that were once present in the neighbourhood, the building’s polished materiality of metal and glass creates a distinctive feel. The metal coating varies in colour and tone and is brighter on the tower while taking on a matt texture on the Amazon headquarters. They tried to connect the major buildings through their materiality.
Interiors
To keep the focus on spectacular views of the Principal Place, Foster + Partners created the interior designs for each of the units, restricting ornamentation to a variety of locally sourced and hand-crafted furnishings. They aimed to develop a serene, modest, and modern look that captures the spirit of the locale and appeals to a wide audience. Floor-to-ceiling glazing panels were used to create a seamless connection between the inside and the outside while focusing on the breathtaking views and location.
Facade
The inner volume, which is clearly defined on the building’s façade, receives points of natural contraction from three “wing cores” on the north and south façades. These points of contraction give the interior volume a spatial rhythm. As you walk from the City to the north, the streetscape maintains a sense of continuity thanks to the building’s segmented design, which responds to Shoreditch’s industrial-built heritage.
An envelope of floor-to-ceiling windows, wide balconies and louvres in the colour brass unifies the three volumes. Foster + Partners created this look to go well with the neighbouring Amazon UK headquarters’ metal and glass exterior.
Innovative technology
The tower’s energy-saving features include a combined heat and power plant, roof-mounted solar panels, and greywater harvesting. It aims to achieve Level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes.
References
ArchDaily. 2022. Principal Tower / Foster + Partners. [online] Available at: <https://www.archdaily.com/931796/principal-tower-foster-plus-partners>
Principal Place | Foster + Partners. [online] Fosterandpartners.com. Available at: <https://www.fosterandpartners.com/projects/principal-place/>
Crook, L., 2022. Foster + Partners completes luxury Principal Tower in London. [online] Dezeen. Available at: <https://www.dezeen.com/2019/11/28/foster-partners-principal-tower-london/>
