LONDON | Project Compilation Thread

[IciLondres]

Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Land Securities Group Plc, Britain’s largest real estate investment trust, may revive a plan to build the London skyscraper known as the Walkie-Talkie as rents start to rebound.

Land Securities, based in the U.K. capital, put the project on hold in 2008 because of a slump in the commercial property market. The Walkie Talkie, named because of its resemblance to two-way radios, was due to be built on a site at 20 Fenchurch Street in the City of London financial district.

“We have just started to think about the potential timing,” Chief Executive Officer Francis Salway said on a conference call with reporters today. “A development in the West End is viable at today’s rents.” The City of London, though, is “probably about nine to 12 months behind.”

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...kie-tower.html

[facadestructures]

looks awesome!

[Swede]

I like the walkie-talkie. the one part I'm not so enthusiastic about is the non-concave sides: grey walls like that... noooooo!

[IciLondres]

I walked past the Shard site yesterday evening and it was striking how the core had begun its rise.
It didn’t seem so clear looking at pics or the webcam but here is one comparison, with a red dot at the same point (unless of course the camera had been moved, which it hadn’t).
I know there are videos of the build schedule on Youtube but I think most of us will still be amazed how quickly this is going to go up.

[IciLondres]

The red dot was the top of the block two days ago. The block should be leaving the web cam view by the end of next week.

[IciLondres]

You have to laugh that Boris-biased news is carrying a front-page 'story' today about Anish Kapoor's 50-metre high sculpture in Middlesbrough. The fact that the same man has designed the tallest sculpture in Europe ready for the London 2012 site seems to have passed them by. Too busy with the day job editing the school mag, or not wanting to give Boris any credit for proposing this? You decide.

BTW, 400 feet makes it taller than London's Centre Point, and those that have seen the plans say the sculpture will be amazing.






A SPIRALLING 400ft sculpture designed by the Turner prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor is set to win the competition for a monument to mark the 2012 Olympic Games.

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, is planning the £15m artwork, which he hopes could become a popular tourist attraction.

The sculpture, to be built in the Olympic park, is to be funded by Lakshmi Mittal, the steel magnate and Britain’s richest man.

Although the exact design is being kept secret, the asymmetric steel structure is understood to resemble a cluster of interlocking fractured rings.
Related Links

* BBC has high hopes for 2012 Olympics

* Report reveals £160m Olympics shortfall

The form is intended to complement the sweeping curves of the nearby Aquatics centre, by Zaha Hadid, and its form nods to the five rings of the Olympic logo.

The sculpture will incorporate lifts for visitors and offer sweeping views over London. A restaurant is also planned, though its inclusion will depend on the ability of Cecil Balmond, the project’s engineer, to overcome significant structural challenges.

Like the Skylon, the futuristic sculpture built for the 1951 Festival of Britain to wow a war-weary nation, it is hoped the artwork will become a symbol of optimism as Britain emerges from recession.

Securing funding for the project is a coup for Johnson, who has been urging London’s super-rich to give something back to society. A source close to Mittal said he decided to fund the project as a “gift to the city he loves”, after Johnson suggested the idea last year.

Although a winner has yet to be announced, it is understood Kapoor’s design has pipped a rival entry by Antony Gormley, famous for his iron figures.

“It’s an extremely exuberant design,” said Barbara Gladstone, Kapoor’s art dealer in New York. “I think it’s an incredibly appropriate work for this period because it uses all the latest technology.

“If you think of the Eiffel Tower in 1889, that was something that could never have been built before. Look at what it meant in the end — that kind of symbolism is what’s here, in this work. It’s a statement of optimism and all that’s good about being alive today.”

Kapoor has earned a reputation as the “Mr Big” of modern art, producing sculptures that dwarf the viewer. One new work being assembled in Teesside, called Temenos, resembles a huge pair of tights stretched between two rings, hovering eerily over the postindustrial landscape.

His Olympic artwork will be the tallest in Europe, beating a 315ft statue of Peter the Great in Moscow, built to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Russian navy in 1998.

It is two-thirds the height of the Gherkin skyscraper in London; six times taller than the Angel of the North; and twice as high as Mark Wallinger’s £2m white horse planned for north Kent.

The Olympic sculpture would be lit at night and is expected to draw tourists to East London after 2012. Its steel frame reflects Mittal’s business, which has earned his family a £10.8 billion fortune.

Spokesmen for Johnson and Mittal refused to comment on the scheme. A winning design is expected to be revealed in six weeks’ time.


http://entertainment.timesonline.co....cle6999880.ece

[wjfox2004]

[wjfox2004]

Pics by Medo, from SSC:

[wjfox2004]

A few of my own, from today:

[wjfox2004]

A video of the Shard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiwqcM9f7A8


Hi-res version available here:

http://www.willfox.com/videos/skyscrapers/shard/5.wmv

[wjfox2004]

An interactive London skyline...

http://bit.ly/bvb9zm

You can drag-and-drop the towers. Interesting to see how the Shard and Pinnacle would look if they swapped places.

You can even add the Burj Dubai, Eiffel Tower, Sears Tower, etc.

[IciLondres]

This is very worrying...they are back in the game for making this hideous building...I thought you couldn't get more ugly than Broadgate Tower.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...kie-tower.html

Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Land Securities Group Plc, the U.K.’s largest real estate investment trust, is preparing to restart development of the London skyscraper known as the Walkie-Talkie as a shortage of office space looms.

The company has asked contractors to provide estimates for building the 155-meter (509-foot) tower at 20 Fenchurch Street in the City of London, the capital’s main financial district, Donal McCabe, a Land Securities spokesman, said in a telephone interview. The company shelved the project in 2008.

Real estate companies want to build in the City again as competition for a dwindling number of prime offices starts pushing up rents. Most development plans were put on hold in the recession. The amount of new space coming onto the market will fall to about 840,000 square feet (78,000 square meters) in 2011, the lowest in 30 years, according to broker Drivers Jonas.

“Our aspiration remains to build 20 Fenchurch Street,” McCabe said. “Construction costs generally have reduced over the last 12 months, so it should come as no surprise if we were to market-test any of our potential schemes.”

[Bedhead]

I liked the walkie talkie when it was the cartoon type shape that is shown on the render higher up the page. But then they made it shorter and fatter, and now I'm not so sure.


londonist.com/2007/07/walkie_talkie_w.php
Londonist

I don't think it will harm the immediate area that it's planned for - there are already a lot of bonkers buildings round there like the London Underwriting Centre and the old vinegar warehouse on Eastcheap, so in many ways it will fit right in.

However, it will be a big, black lump on the horizon for anyone looking at the city from the south and west. It might well undo a lot of the good that's being done in the main city cluser.

Still, it will have great views. I was in Plantation Place recently, overlooking the Walkie Talkie site, and even from the 7th floor you can see all the way to Battersea Power Station. If they let people up to the top, as promised (and don't use some security scare to close it down) it will be great.

[leosky]

Battersea Power Station plans gets government backing



Plans to redevelop Battersea Power Station have received the backing of the government's architecture and urban design agency. The proposed £5.5bn project would see 3,700 homes built alongside offices, shops and restaurants on the 40-acre site in south-west London.

The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe) praised the "intelligent" design. Wandsworth Council is expected to make a decision on the plans in July.

Developers, Treasury Holdings UK, registered the planning application for the project with the council in October.

Cabe has supported that application saying architect Rafael Vinoly's design was "intelligent and well-resolved".

Riverside park
But the agency also raised a number of issues including potential problems of overshadowing and the need to ensure flats on lower levels get enough light.

Under the proposals the historic building by the River Thames will become home to a conference centre and its four famous chimneys will be restored.

Two turbine halls and the station's control rooms will be open to the public and a six-acre riverside park will be developed on the riverside north of the building.

The power station, which stopped producing electricity in 1983, became famous when it featured on the front cover of Pink Floyd's 1977 album Animals.

Source:
http://www.urbika.com/projects/view/...ea-power-stati

[wjfox2004]

Taken from Waterloo Bridge this morning (my own pics) :

[wjfox2004]

And the same view in 2012-13:

[IciLondres]

AUDITORS refused to sign off the accounts of one of Liverpool’s biggest property firms, Beetham.

Deloitte said it had not been provided with “appropriate and sufficient” evidence to be able to say whether the property group could be classed as “a going concern”.

The accountancy giant also said it was unable to form a view as to whether the accounts give a “true and fair” reflection of the company’s affairs or that they had been properly prepared.

When Beetham Group’s directors signed off the accounts in late December 2009 the firm was in arrears on certain loans, and there was “uncertainty as to whether further breaches will arise in future”.

The group was also in arrears with a “significant” number of unsecured trade creditors and was in an informal standstill arrangement with many of them.

Despite the auditors’ reservations the group states in its accounts it has a “reasonable expectation that the company has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future”.

But it admits there are material uncertainties facing the business such as continued support from lenders, unsecured creditors, and financial resources from its joint venture partner.

There is no more publicly available information about the current state of the group’s affairs.

Beetham Group, run by father and son Hugh Frost and Stephen Beetham, declined to comment to the Daily Post.

The company has been hit particularly hard by the credit crunch and the recession.

The business run from its West Tower off The Strand in Liverpool was forced to write £61m off the value of its property in its latest set of accounts for parent company Beetham Holdings Two recently filed at Companies House.

The accounts, for the financial year ended September 2008, reveal the group recorded a £45m loss in the year to September 2008.

The Daily Post can also reveal that the group, spent £289,000 operating a private jet.

The £1m Cessna 550 Citation II is parked at John Lennon Airport and is owned by a company called G-Jet J Limited, which has common directors Mr Beetham and Mr Frost.

At September 2008 the group of companies had debts of £222.6m and total assets of £240.5m.

In 2008 Beetham helped secure its own future when it sold a 50% stake in its planned £1bn Blackfriars Tower in London.


http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/...2534-25959243/

[Aleks]

I LOVE the battersea power station. it's one of the best art deco buildings of the world in my opinion. great to see it will be restored!

[Boreal]

London is absolutely spectacular. I'd move tomorrow morning if it wasn't so far away.

[Bedhead]

Originally Posted by wjfox2004

Taken from Waterloo Bridge this morning (my own pics) :

Superb pics and render. No other pictures could show just how important the Pinnacle will be in London's cityscape.

Originally Posted by Aleks

I LOVE the battersea power station. it's one of the best art deco buildings of the world in my opinion. great to see it will be restored!

Couldn't agree more. I think the development around it could be great too. Some say it crowds out the power station, but I think that's what London does best, you turn a corner in a regular neighbourhood and suddenly, pow, a masterpiece is right there in front of you:


http://www.propertyweek.com/story_at...q=1&type=P&c=1
Propertyweek.com

Let's just hope this project isn't just another case of marking time before property prices go up, and the developers make a profit on the land values. In the meantime, here are a couple of nostalgic images:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h...ast/html/4.stm
BBc.co.uk, Getty Images

The station was built in two stages - at one time it only had two chimneys:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h...ast/html/2.stm
BBC.co.uk, getty images