Old Park Lane Management and development manager CORE have been granted planning consent for a 27-storey office block on the corner of Ropemaker Street and Finsbury Pavement, EC2.
Designed by Make Architects, the building at 20 Ropemaker Street will provide 415,000 sq ft of offices across 23 storeys along with dedicated SME/affordable workspace and ground-floor retail.
The building rises to 128m at its tallest point and will provide a “full stop” to the cluster of towers that has developed around the Finsbury Pavement and Ropemaker areas.
A stepped-slice design
The design features a series of stepped “slices” that protrude forward and recess back, reducing the mass and defining the bays and the building’s silhouette. The dimensions shift vertically and horizontally to provide a range of floorplates sizes.
The stepped heights have created space for five different roof terraces, and the office floorplates also have balconies. More than three-quarters of the office floors have access to outdoor amenity space.
The ground-floor entrance level has been designed as a community space for the building’s occupants, the reception desk doubles as a bar, and there is a variety of meeting and work spaces, green walls, established planting, events spaces, cafés and a lecture area.
Frank Filskow, partner at Make, said: “The articulated form will deliver varied floorplates designed to foster a community of businesses and enhance the wellness of the occupants. Virtually every floor has access to outdoor roof terraces or balconies to create a better workplace.”
‘Well-connected location’
David Ainsworth, chief executive of CORE, said: “We have been privileged to work with a great team to reach this milestone, and we are now looking forward to creating a game-changing building in this well connected location.”
Tim Sketchley, Old Park Lane Management, said: “Ropemaker is an opportunity to develop an office complex that represents the future for commercial workspace with its design bringing together ‘lean and clean’ technologies with amenity spaces, outstanding accessibility and provision for the health and well-being of the people who will work in it.”
The scheme is expected to complete in 2022.
Cushman & Wakefield is the appointed letting agent on the scheme. Gerald Eve advised on planning.
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