One Blackfriars.

Style and substance.

With views of St Paul’s Cathedral and the city skyline to the east, the One Blackfriars development is true London luxury. Centred around an elegant 49-storey residential tower on the south of the River Thames, the scheme will deliver more than 400 apartments, as well as a four-star hotel and a five-floor penthouse with an internal winter garden and 360° views of London.

Performance under pressure.

Towers of this height usually include a mid-level pressure break plant room. However, it would have meant a loss of floor space that would have reduced the client’s overall sales revenue. Instead, we designed the tower to be served by multiple pipework risers. These are arranged as high, medium, and low pressure systems and are separated by pressure break heat exchangers in the basement. By taking this approach we ensured the apartments would have sufficient – and not excessive – water pressure.

Working with scale.

Another challenge on this project was to deliver a building with a striking fully-glazed façade that would still achieve full compliance with the project’s carbon performance requirements. We worked closely with the architect and the client to devise a building-fabric solution that met this brief, both aesthetically and physically. We also brought our vertical transportation expertise to this large scale tower as its height presented a potential issue with lift wait times.

By working effectively with the wider project team, we were able to deliver a building that’s as functional as it is stylish.