London Office Project Gets Go Ahead to Go Tall

Heritage groups opposed the office project at 120 Fleet Street due to its height compared to nearby buildings. Image credit: Bjarke Ingels Group

03 November 2021 | London, United Kingdom

Despite objections from heritage groups, a 21-story office project on Fleet Street in London has been granted planning permission by the City of London Corporations’s Planning and Transportation Committee.

Developer CO—RE’s project at 120 Fleet Street involves detaching the Daily Express building, which is Grade II* listed, from the River Court building, which will be demolished to make way for the new office building. River Court, formerly the Goldman Sachs headquarters, has been vacant since 2019.

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Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, the office building will wrap around the heritage art deco building on two sides and will feature a series of stepped roof terraces starting on the 6th floor. It will deliver 50,550 square meters of office space and 1,700 square meters of retail space. Two basement levels of the existing building will be retained and reused.

A dedicated cyclehouse with storage for over 1,000 bicycles with a bicycle concierge service and coffee shop will be situated on the ground floor.

The Daily Express building will also be redeveloped as part of the project into a publicly accessible cultural venue, with a public roof garden. Its art deco foyer will be revealed and made visible from Fleet Street.

For more on this story, go to Building Design and Bjarke Ingles Group.