ISSUE THIRTY-FIVE SUMMER 2018 QUARTERLY £10 Amanda Levete Tall Buildings special MICA Architects Tibbalds Centre Point © Luke Hayes © Luke QUARTERLY

New Quarterly 26 Store Street It was instructive to note, said the project has been brought up to London WC1E 7BT NLA chairman Peter Murray in his date, with Conran and Partners and The magazine of New London Architecture – presentation to the APPG about tall MICA (profiled elsewhere this issue) Bringing people together to shape a better city www.newlondonarchitecture.org buildings, how few raised eyebrows reworking the scheme as a residential there had been among the press project, but one which sits within and public at the latest set of figures a far more permeable, attractive showing the pipeline of schemes over and accessible ground plane. In our 20 storeys. When the first NLA survey Viewpoint section we ask whether tall Editor was carried out in 2014, even Boris buildings are good for London, and David Taylor Johnson and his department had we include a special feature that brings Editor-in-chief been caught off guard at the prospect together a number of different NLA Peter Murray of more than 200 tall buildings events and studies on the subject. Group editorial director Debbie Whitfield coming to the capital. But this time? Brexit is another subject with Editorial director Over 500 barely caused a whimper. potential to have an impact on tall Catherine Staniland Are we growing accustomed to the buildings, not least in terms of the Sub editor prospect? Is London becoming a tall skills crisis. And our New Londoner Julia Dawson building city? And if so, are they in this issue – this year’s annual lecturer Editorial support the right place? Amanda Levete – talks about how Jenine Hudson; If we are to truly attend to London’s she is considering opening up in Aurelia Amanitis need for 66,000 homes per year, then Paris to help mitigate the problems of Publisher Nick McKeogh tall buildings need to be part of that the European question. Levete also Head of marketing picture, say most proponents. But talks about the work her practice has Michelle Haywood we must by the same token ensure completed at MAAT in Lisbon, and at Photography that the London we create is not one the RIBA award-winning V&A scheme Agnese Sanvito where the ground plane suffers for in London, both immediately popular the sake of height, and that heritage and critically acclaimed projects which Design and art direction buildings and wider areas are not present museums as important parts blighted. And, a year on from Grenfell, of the public realm. [email protected] the focus on safety and maintenance Elsewhere in the magazine there Enquiries in tall buildings is perhaps more acute is the usual mix of opinions, capital [email protected] than ever before. ideas, and a visit to The Ned in the This issue has a tall buildings focus, City to see how the EPR scheme has Advertising and New London Development Directory not least in the building review of a fared. Plus a look at how the recent [email protected] scheme that has for decades acted local elections are likely to impact on as a wayfinder for the eastern end of London’s regeneration, courtesy of Front cover Amanda Levete, by Agnese Sanvito Oxford Street – Centre Point. Having the New London Sounding Board. been built as an ‘island’ scheme that Enjoy the issue. © 2018. All rights reserved. bowed to the prominence of the car, David Taylor, Editor ISSUE THIRTY-FIVE 18 43 85 NLA ANNUAL

56 AWARDS LUNCH

Join over 700 of the capital’s Need to know 4 Opinion 25, 41, 49, 55 Practice profile 56 leading built enviroment The quarter – our potted summary of Opinions from Ryder, Battersea Power MICA Architects talk Croydon, Centre all the key news events this term Station Development Company, Point, and context with David Taylor professionals at the NLA Annual News extra 6 Gensler, and the West London Alliance Letter from the boroughs 62 Lunch on Wednesday 4th July Robert Gordon Clark reflects on the Tall Buildings Special 28 Hackney mayor Philip Glanville impact of the London elections extols the borough’s virtues Tall storeys – our coverage of this Viewpoint 9 year’s tall building’s events Briefing notes 65 To book visit: We ask: are 500 tall buildings The low-down on all of NLA’s good for London? Update 36 recent conferences and events newlondonarchitecture.org/book Soundbites 12 Game changer – the first in a series of Coffee break 83 reports on the Elizabeth Line’s impact Who said what at the main Whitbread’s Joanne Moon NLA events this quarter From the team 39 answers the questions

Learning from... 16 NLA head of events Lauren Bennett Building review 85 Peter Murray on what London on charity giving at Store Street Office to resi – letting can learn from Milan, and Centre Point live again Stefano Boeri’s Vertical Forest Top of their game 43 The directory 97 New Londoner 18 Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design on making ‘people-friendly Our guide to the companies and NLA Annual lecturer Amanda properties in London, complete with places’. By David Taylor Levete talks to David Taylor agents’ views on specific areas NLA Research 26 The user experience 50 My London 168 Sir Malcolm Grant kicks off NLA’s One year on at The Ned – architect Mount Anvil’s Lisa Ravenscroft Knowledge Capital season and client give their appraisals on Whitechapel 18 New Londoner ISSUE THIRTY-FIVE SUMMER 2018 ISSUE THIRTY-FIVE SUMMER 2018 New Londoner 19

Amanda Levete was all set to museums that are almost a polar London. And everyone who works enter a competition to design the opposite to the icon days: the hugely here loves London, which is why we’re new EU headquarters building in popular MAAT and its rooftop public here. But we need to be prepared Brussels, when she spotted some of space that attracted 85,000 people for Brexit if and when it happens, the small print. on its first day, and the V&A, whose and we are already feeling the effects If, it read, Brexit reached an own project has helped to lift footfall of the possibility of a hard Brexit in ‘unacceptable conclusion’, they by some 26 per cent in a year when the reduced numbers of people who reserved the right to reject a winning museum attendance nationally has are applying from the EU.’ There’s proposal from British architects. So been dropping. ‘What you could say been a drop-off in that and a couple that was it. And it made Levete realise is common to them all is that they of people returning home to Spain the enormity of the problems facing have captured, in different ways, the (the dominant nationality in the the UK and its considerable design public’s imagination’, says Levete. office, with French). OJEU is a big expertise, despite her London-based, Entering the office, visitors are source of work for the practice, as it European practice adding to the encouraged to remove their shoes. For is for others. richness of cities both here and abroad staffers, it is compulsory. The point is The EU headquarters was the kind with projects like MAAT in Lisbon that this is a great leveller, says Levete, of project it would have loved to have and the V&A on Exhibition Road. and that ‘all are in it together’ – a done, with its interesting site and I caught up with this year’s NLA phrase she repeats a fair amount and emphasis on identity. But reading annual lecturer, Jane Drew Prize- one which hints at her belief that the through the conditions alarmed winner and all-round good egg Levete ethos of the firm is firmly rooted in Levete. ‘There’s a paragraph that, in in her practice’s large office behind a collaboration, but furthermore that the event of a poorly negotiated exit trademark orange door on Brewery clients are not in for a passive ride. It’s from the EU, they reserve the right also all about leaving preconceptions – to kick off the UK practices, in the as well as worries – on the doorstep. event that they win. I’d never seen it ‘Everyone who works here loves But Brexit is a key concern that in black and white like that.’ AL_A London, which is why we’re here. has even forced Levete to investigate would have wanted to team up with a But we need to be prepared for opening an office in Paris, in part practice based in Brussels, and spoke to attend to the firm’s project to with one they have a real regard for. Brexit if and when it happens, and remodel the Galeries Lafayette. In ‘They have huge respect for what we we are already feeling the effects’ a speech to the Creative Industries do, but because we were British, they Federation in March, Levete said weren’t going to team up. So that’s that she would be derelict in her duty that. We’re not going to go for it. It’s Road, between King’s Cross, Camden, to rule out exploring the possibility. just one example, but is the beginning and the Caledonian Road. The last But fleeing is not an option. ‘We’re of something. And it really hurt.’ time we met she was with her long- not going to move wholesale, no’, As a consequence, Levete says, they time partner Jan Kaplicky, with whom she says. ‘This is my home and I love need to be in a position where they as they designed key schemes such as the - winning Lord’s Media Centre and Footloose – AL_A Selfridges. Both of those staff and visitors projects arrived in short order when remove their shoes the practice was down to its bare A EUROPEAN bones, financially – the then boss of Selfridges Vittorio Radice approaching them after driving past Lord’s and being impressed with the monocoque IN LONDON structure on his way to work every day. And both were in essence of that This year’s NLA annual lecturer period of hermetic, iconic designs that Amanda Levete talks Brexit, exploring Levete now feels is broadly over. Cut to today, and Levete has an office in Paris, MAAT, V&A her own practice, AL_A, and the and gender, with David Taylor architectural world is in the main toasting her successes with the two 20 New Londoner ISSUE THIRTY-FIVE SUMMER 2018 ISSUE THIRTY-FIVE SUMMER 2018 New Londoner 21

and the V&A will re-emerge, such as A people place – the how they go beyond the building’s

© Hufton Crow new V&A courtyard boundaries, and how permeability

© Fernando Guerra © Fernando can be improved between the city and the store and vice versa. ‘It’s a very interesting brief – they want to restate what it means to be French.’ With Selfridges there was almost no context, whereas this is in the heart of Paris in a very historic Haussmann building. The Lord’s Media Centre was all about projecting a different image, too, for a daring commissioning client, even if some of their ways were stuck in the Dark Ages. Levete retells the story of how when she and Kaplicky came to present their shortlisted designs to the MCC (in two tubes of drawings), she was not allowed into the Pavilion as a woman (they are now), and Kaplicky was initially prevented for not wearing The V&A Exhibition a tie. But the iconography of the Road Quarter Media Centre and the reference to Marshall McLuhan was the have a French office from which they medium as the message; it had to can apply, hence the exploration of a be visually memorable and yet also Paris office that would be just three the place that the media broadcast hours away via the nearby Eurostar. their message from. For it to work as part of the office, the four AL_A directors – Ho-Yin Ng, Maximiliano Arrocet, Alice Dietsch Lisbon living – and Levete herself – would need MAAT to make commitments to spending time in Paris. The French connection does not end there. AL_A has been shortlisted to transform the Eiffel Tower site, and when President Macron was over with Theresa May to visit the V&A scheme on its opening, Levete chatted to him. ‘He’s such a rock star’, she says. ‘He said “magnifique” and was very complimentary, and when I told him we were also doing Galeries Lafayette he asked how long we have to wait for it.’ The answer on that is the programme on that project is ‘evolving’, but the job is to remodel the inside and how it projects itself Inside the Museum to the outside. This is not in the of Art Architecture public domain yet, but some of the and Technology

themes AL_A explored at MAAT © Hufton Crow (MAAT) © Hufton Crow 22 New Londoner ISSUE THIRTY-FIVE SUMMER 2018 ISSUE THIRTY-FIVE SUMMER 2018 New Londoner 23

The department store for Selfridges leave is as generous as maternity, it Levete, meanwhile, has been criticised captured the public’s imagination via won’t get better.’ In the time Levete for networking, she discloses. ‘Tell me Fish food – the the external discs and its curvaceous has had a practice, she has witnessed who isn’t? Is it not important to do practice’s pop-up form, to the extent that it became a huge increase in applications from that?’ Once again, men would never restaurant in Soho an emblem for the identity of women, and gender balance in the be described in this way. It’s water © Paul Winch Furness Birmingham, and even appeared practice is pretty equal, not that she is off a duck’s back for Levete, but, she on a stamp. And the V&A has been tokenistic. But having a balance is very maintains, people don’t realise they are similarly taken to the public’s heart, important. ‘It contributes so much to doing it, and language is so pervasive. says Levete, even if it stands in stark the culture of a place.’ Setting up AL_A was more than just contrast to the previous scheme And, looking around at some of ‘a name on a slide’, and something proposed for the same site, by Daniel the most significant architects – she Levete underestimated. But it is more Libeskind. ‘For me, the demise of cites Liz Diller and Kazuyo Sejima, collaborative than Future Systems ever that scheme marked the end of the as well as the late Zaha Hadid – there was. ‘At Future Systems we would era of building as icon and we talked are many inspiring models. ‘What always start with a sketch, invariably a a lot about the iconography of place. do we have to do for the question Jan sketch,’ says Levete, ‘and here it’s a Sometimes, a more radical thing to do not to be asked?’ Hashtag campaigns conversation between me and my three is not to build.’ such as the Me Too movement have directors. We continue that conversation This harks back to Cedric Price, a brought awareness to a much wider for as long as it takes and resist making huge influence on Amanda Levete issue across many professions in a way a formal proposal because it’s a as a student, as was David Greene, that years of legislation failed, Levete conversation that’s about exploring the and, later, Richard Rogers, at whose believes, to a point where change is limits of a project, and understanding Tincan has whetted practice she met Kaplicky. There irreversible. But we’re at a point where what the questions are that we have to the practice’s there is perhaps too much conflict at ask ourselves to unlock the ideas that appetite for more the moment. ‘We need to find a way are going to drive the project. So it’s a such ventures ‘You never hear men described to not make this about a conflict, but more conceptual approach, trying to as a “diva” and men behave how we collaborate better.’ really take time to understand what Elsewhere in the portfolio there is in exactly the same ruthless, Hadid is one of those whose work that line of enquiry might be. It’s a less a clever project called Pitch/Pitch Levete admires a great deal, and who architecturally formal way of working. – which is a kind of stackable powerful, eccentric way’ she has described in the past as ‘taking Levete became an architect in the five-a-side football pitch for the bullets’. What does she mean? first place after leaving school at 16 meanwhile sites that the practice has are times and sites where icons have ‘She was arguably one of the most and going to art college. In reading designed with Arup, out of carbon- a validity, she says, but more and important, recognised and famous about art history she discovered fibre and also steel – but also a more, the interesting buildings are architects in the world at the time of architecture, she says, and could see desire to get into social housing from the ones that work tightly with the her death’, she says. ‘So she carried that architecture touched on issues first principles: finding sites, putting urban grain and interlink history and with her a huge responsibility. She was about society, politics and identity, together funding and working modernity. She points to Herzog & de a trailblazer and because of her fame whether individual or national, and with the community. Meuron’s Philharmonie in Hamburg and reputation she stood there in front now relishes constraints that she can But risk is a final subject I want to as a case in point. of everybody, so she had to deal with push against. ‘I enjoy a challenge and talk through. ‘It’s something I feel I ask about gender in the profession, most of the flak. And there was a lot pushing things to their limits.’ really strongly about’, says Levete. something Levete says she felt of it.’ Most of this was gender-related, She loves what she does, especially ‘For me, for work to be interesting would come up. Do women design Levete believes. But the character working in the office, but also the site you need to, in some way, however differently to men? No, not at all, traits of the creative geniuses over visit, and neither does she ever want modest, advance the debate. And to she says, flatly. So, what can we do history such as Le Corbusier, Mies to feel disengaged. She hates the way do that implies taking risks.’ Most about the problem of diversity in the van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright the competition process has driven clients demand the bespoke, but

profession? Essentially, one of the are admired and lionised. Even in architecture fees to unsustainable © Paul Winch Furness without risk, and that is the paradox answers is to work more towards the The Fountainhead that kind of thing levels, and respect eroded in the at the heart of the profession. Risk main issue as she sees it of childcare was viewed with admiration. But in a process. So she loves the kind of in her Richard Rogers Partnership about being an architect and even has become a pejorative word and the shared responsibility for woman it becomes more pejorative, entrepreneurial spirit she believes days; now she yearns to own her own present back to the staff in what was associated with the hubris of the parenting. ‘Until we get to the point and the way Hadid was always architects have lost, but which lay office with a restaurant attached. Or, clearly a rewarding experience for all ‘machismo-driven’ financial crash. where it is accepted and understood described as a ‘diva’ particularly gets behind a pop-up restaurant the in much the same vein, there is the concerned. ‘We treated them as we ‘It’s time we reclaimed risk as that men and women want to take the Levete’s goat. ‘You never hear men practice produced in Soho – Tincan. work she did with a local primary would our clients’, says Levete. ‘It was a positive force and everybody responsibility in terms of the amount described as a “diva” and men behave It was a big critical success, and school, where a group of 9-10 year fantastically successful. The teachers buys into sharing the risk, and the of time they invest in it, particularly in exactly the same ruthless, powerful, reminded Levete a little of when the olds would come to the office in were just stunned by the results – it excitement too’, says Levete. ‘It’s not when young, and when paternity eccentric way.’ River Café was a favourite haunt an after-school club project, learn was really touching.’ a negative thing.’