A Building with Soul
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97BPM12:07 WE IMAGINED THE BUILDING WE’D WANT TO WORK IN Summary Active Business Community 1.275m sq ft of office space Over 100,000 sq ft of community spaces 62 levels Contents 03 People Want To Work Differently 04 We Imagined The Building We’d Want To Work In 10 The City Is Back 16 A Building With Soul 24 Wellness Works 26 Twentytwo’s Community Spaces 46 The Social Workplace 48 Twentytwo’s Workspaces 66 Summary Features 71 The Team 73 A Reminder To Ourselves 74 Contacts PEOPLE WANT TO WORK DIFFERENTLY Workplaces traditionally offered little more than a desk and meeting space. They were often impersonal and unimaginative. People thrive in work when they can meet, share and collaborate. They thrive when their workplace considers their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing and when they love where they work. And when people love where they work, businesses flourish. 97BPM12:07 02 03 97BPM WE IMAGINED THE BUILDING 12:07 WE’D WANT TO WORK IN Twentytwo is a social workplace in the heart of London with a diverse and active business community. Twentytwo offers choice — different spaces for healthy eating, exercise, relaxing, meeting and sharing experiences, and choice for occupiers to create their own style of workspace. Twentytwo has been designed with your health and wellness in mind. Our ambition is to make a significant and positive impact on your business and the people in our building community. 04 05 vw LET’S NOT DRESSES WORK IN THE SAME BUILDINGS AND HAS WHERE THE EVERYONE SAME THINKS SORT THE SAME, OF JOB. THE CITY IS BACK Words by Dylan Jones London life is nowadays a lifestyle, a kaleidoscopic polyphonic theme park across 33 boroughs and nine travel zones that houses grand hotels, dive cocktail bars, world renowned design galleries, bohemian indie clubs, family-owned bistros, esoteric independent retailers, theatres, gentrified trophy parks, state-funded public art and reclaimed open spaces, a cavalcade of consumerism and participatory art. Everything is here: unlike Italy there is no equivalent to Milan, meaning London is the UK’s fashion and media hub; unlike the US there is no equivalent to Washington, meaning London is our political capital; unlike the US again there is no equivalent to Los Angeles, meaning we are the entertainment hub; and unlike Germany there is no equivalent to Frankfurt, meaning London is our centre of finance. It is all about London. Still. One of the things driving this success is the extraordinary activity taking place in the City. As every other part of London has been colonised and gentrified, I suppose it was only a matter of time before the City warranted the same kind of attention. The City has the greatest established financial infrastructure in Europe, and not only is it world-renowned as a place for grown-up business, it’s now diversifying in order to attract a broader business base. There has been an enormous change in the demography of the City, and the streets are rich with diversity, not just in terms of colour and creed, but also in terms of communities, 10 11 of nearby Shoreditch are shoring up the Dylan’s City Highlights City’s cultural assets, and the soon-come Crossrail is going to have a huge effect The Ned on the area’s artistic diversity, creating far greater connectivity to London’s principal Ten Trinity Square business districts (particularly the tech- savvy employment pool in the East). You The Ivy can already see the changing demographic just by walking around the streets of the Bob Bob Ricard City right now, and the excitement is rather intoxicating. Blacklock In response, developers and City occupiers are doing interesting things with their real estate. At the heart of all this new activity is Twentytwo, an inspiring new workplace concept due to open on Bishopsgate in 2019 with 100,000 sq ft of community spaces such as a food market, gym, library, innovation hub and art interventions throughout the building. Bloomberg, which is the poster child of a big tech company, has created a very bespoke new environment for its staff, a new ‘street’ that cuts right through the middle of its new HQ offering great independent F&B. Across the road, the James Stirling- MOORGATE LIVERPOOL STREET designed One Poultry is being positioned as unashamedly E T A LONDON WALL G tech. Other City firms are using office relocations as a way S LONDON WALL P O 3 H S of creating new working environments; even law firms, some I B of the most conservative of all, are transforming their myriad GRESHAM ST glass box offices into more agile working systems. MOORGATE ALDGATE B E V PRINCES ST IS The bottom line is that the City, with its huge global M T A CHEAPSIDE LE S R NEED K 1 AD 4 S careers and lifestyle definitions. The City is one appeal, continues to reinvent itself, not just to remain at the RE POULTRY TH ST PAUL’S LEADENH of the most invigorating regions in London, and centre of business, but to establish itself as a genuine cultural, CORNHILL ALL ST KING WILLIAM ST L OM is almost unrecognisable from how it appeared environmental and residential hub. BA ST R H D RC ST HU ten years ago. QUEEN VICTORIA ST NC Nowadays London might not be the biggest in the world BANK FE CANNON ST Slowly, with stealth, style and a gargantuan (Tokyo and Yokohama can claim that crown), yet this powerful MANSION HOUSE 5 GRACECHURCH ST FENCHURCH TOWER UPPER THAMES ST amount of investment, the City is reinventing itself and distinctive city is as full of architectural riches as it’s EASTCHEAP GREAT TOWERSTREET ST HILL and attracting a greater diversity of businesses, ever been. The decor and architecture of important London 2 CANNON LOWER THAMES ST from digital start-ups, co-working spaces and buildings once seemed to represent a conscious desire to be STREET E online service providers to global retail brands, part of an imaginary immemorial London, whereas these days G MONUMENT D I R B gaming developers, media and data companies every new building wants to look like the future, encouraging a N SOUTHWARK BRIDGE O and international publishers. New retailers nostalgia for an age yet to come. As the city gets bigger, so it D N O are opening in the area — independents, new seems to be raising the bar. As Anthony Sampson said in The L concept stores and international brands, whilst the arrival of Anatomy Of Britain, back in pre-Swinging 1962, “Bigness has fashionable new bars, restaurants, hotels, gyms and members’ strengthened the lure of London.” clubs appear to be attracting a more diverse community and And, like I say, the momentum is moving East. a lively evening economy. As well as Soho House’s hip new LONDON BRIDGE venture The Ned you’ve got Soho-based restaurants like Bob Dylan Jones is the editor-in-chief of GQ and the Bob Ricard and Blacklock moving in, new properties such Chairman of London Fashion Week Men’s. as Neil Rankin’s Temper, Devonshire Club and The Ivy on Old Broad Street. The new private members club Ten Trinity Square has opened, while in nearby Shoreditch you have the Curtain Club and the new Nobu Hotel. Yes really, all in and 2018 TRAVEL TIMES FROM LIVERPOOL STREET STATION TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE around the City. Tottenham Court Road — 4 mins Paddington — 10 mins Elizabeth Line opens at Liverpool Street 2018 However the City isn’t just becoming a haven of post- Canary Wharf — 6 mins Eurostar — 14 mins 5 mainline train stations nearby modern wine bars and boutiques, as it is experiencing Bond Street — 7 mins City Airport — 20 mins 10 underground stations nearby something of a cultural recalibration, too. The cool credentials Heathrow — 35 mins 20 million people within a one-hour commute 12 13 An eleventh century parish church, Great Saint Helen, faces a small square to the north. Crosby Square connects the site to east-lying tall buildings on Leadenhall, Undershaft and St. Mary Axe. When we began to explore the potential of designing a A new tall building, we asked several questions. With a growing number of tall buildings, how could a new tall building join them together to represent the City as a whole? How could a tall building support the way talented, creative people work? How could the building communicate its stimulating inner character at the street level? BUILDING A tall building impacts both skyline and ground plane. Twentytwo is designed to unify the cluster of tall buildings. 122 Leadenhall and 30 St. Mary Axe are both handsome towers with highly articulated surface treatments, expressing structure as decoration. For this site, city planners wanted a simpler expression, to represent a more restrained but serious WITH business character. The design idea is a twenty-three sided, faceted form to reflect light differently, breaking the massing. The west facing facets generate the stepping top, giving the cluster of tall buildings an apex, desired by the planners so that it reads as a whole. When completed in 2019, Twentytwo will SOUL be the tallest building in the City of London. Words by Karen Cook Twentytwo occupies a site at the heart of the City of London’s tall buildings, where Threadneedle links the historic Roman road of Bishopsgate to the Bank of England. 16 A civic scale place, bringing the city into the building. Low iron glass with a shimmery metallic coating renders the glass clearer and lighter than the preceding generation of neighbouring tall buildings.