Metrospective One New Change

Could London finally be about to get a new development designed by Jean Nouvel to sit adjacent to St Paul’s Cathedral in the heart of the City of London?The One New Change development has been designed by Nouvel for developer Land Securities PLC, on a three acre plot on the western end of Cheapside. The building is essentially a twist on the ground scraper which is becoming ubiquitous in this part of the City featuring two organically shaped blocks with a public route running between them and generous amounts of public space that even lead to the roof and a viewing platform opening up new views to St Paul’s Cathedral.The northern chunk will contain over 30,000 square metres of A1 office space and the southern block will house 20,000 square metres of retail space creating one of the single largest shopping malls in the whole of central London and will hopefully go some way to drawing people back to the City in the weekends – at the moment the City is almost exclusively inhabited by an office population with shops existing to sell them things in lunch-breaks and after work plus the odd passing tourist. During the weekend and holidays it can literally be like a London set from 28 Days Later.The biggest challenge to the project came from fitting so much floor space into the plot and yet keeping it low-rise, not to mention dealing with creating public areas which would eat up potential floor space hence one of the reasons for positioning public areas on the top of the building, a rare feature in London. The trade offs between these elements that One New Change required, plus the planning constraints of having to work with the cathedral next door, meant that orientating all the elements right down to the shape of the roof, was vital to avoid any obstructions and at the maximum to hug the profile of the building that exists on the site has on the skyline. Although the buildings only reach 6 floors in height this could have a profound effect on far away thanks to the proximity it has with Wren’s masterpiece if badly managed. It appears the design will be successful in enhancing views with the western end of Watling Street set to set a marked improvement on the previously partly obscured views.The project will be clad in a matt glass enclosure to create a pleasing palette that compliments and respects the recently cleaned whiteness of St Paul’s next door without overbearing on the area.Jean Nouvel is one of the world’s most critically acclaimed architects but despite this he has failed to get a single building built in the U.K. Previous projects included Crystal Tower, a mid 90s skyscraper for London that fell by the wayside whilst recently he has been working on the multi-colooured bullet shaped Torre Aghbar in Spain. With over £200 million of backing from Land Securities for the project there’s certainly a big vote of faith in his abilities as an architect to deliver a high quality project in a sensitive location such as this despite being untested in the U.K.

Sidell Gibson (www.sidellgibson.co.uk) have been selected as executive architects, working with atelier Jean Nouvel ( www.jeannouvel.com ) on make it buildable. One New Change will be Nouvel's first major scheme to be built in London.

(courtesy of www.skyscrapernews.com, pic from www.sidellgibson.co.uk)