Perhaps this is old news - if so just ignore it - this fantastic exhibition is currently running - on the Euston Road:

http://www.airspaceweb.com/pano.php

Cluster City for me.

We need:

- Tall buildings of the highest possible design quality
- Tall buildings to be clustered together, not isolated (with a few notable exceptions)
- Tall buildings which have a positive effect on their surroundings, and which contribute to sustainability
- Tall buildings which respect the street level and are pedestrian-friendly
- Tall buildings which respect and/or complement historic settings
- Tall buildings to be located near busy transport nodes

Thankfully most of the proposals we have satisy all of these criteria.

London needs:

A variety of tall buildings, mostly located in key points such as CW, the city, and Vauxhall. Buildings with spires that taper to the sky in the same way that churches once did on London's skyline. Demolition and replacement of the tower blocks that ruin the skyline in most areas at the moment. Only the best quality designs that also look good at street level and are practical!

London is well on its way to a Far East City skyline, anyone who has been to Bangkok will notice similarities with London - towers dotted down the length of its river with several clusters to one side of the river.
Whilst office buildings will almost certainly be contained in clusters in London the relatively new concept of high rise apartment buildings means further towers will be dotted across the capital - The Airspace exhibition seems to consider only office buildings and deals visualy with only the North side of the Thames...if you take into account towers at Wapping, The South Bank, London Bridge, Vauxhall, Deptford, Elephant and Castle, Croydon, Stratford etc even though these will be in clusters there are so many clusters that the Shanghai vision of London won't look so unobtainable. Also if you take Canary Wharf as an example - clusters spread - you have Ontario, London Arena, Greenwhich and Poplar - all with towers under construction or planned, yet all away from a contained cluster.
I personaly believe the Shanghai on Thames vision is the closest to a future reality - its just not going to be office buildings that fill the skyline - but rather lower rise residential.

I totally agree with all the points WjFox has already listed in his post, espially about buildings in a cluster and not just sticking a random skyscraper all on its own which can look ridiculous...with a few exceptions.

But, I'll add my own point:

London needs to bloody well imporve the quality of design for skyscrapers going up at Canary Wharf!!! It's like they think becasue it's away from the main historic parts of the city they can get away with building bland blocks of glass and steal! I was hoping Columbus would improve this situation.... :( But I guess Riverside South, Heron Quays, North Quay etc etc all have pretty decent designs...if only they'd get built!

The proposed City skyscrapers all look sexual to the point of orgasmic!

:cheers:

Demolition and replacement of the tower blocks that ruin the skyline in most areas at the moment. Only the best quality designs that also look good at street level and are practical! I don't think this is the answer, at least for the Brutalist 60s council estates. Comprehensive redevelopment was what got us these awful tower blocks in the first place. Now the density is so high in these places it would be impossible to rehouse them, except many miles away from their friends and jobs. What you need is a program of improvement; updating the facilities inside and putting more modern facades on the outside.

Take the Southside centre in Wandsworth - it was an ugly 60s tower block. It's had some new cladding and whilst the new building is no beauty it's certainly an improvement and isn't anywhere near as expensive as demolision would be.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b316/BenL26/19368.jpg

As well as points made by others I also think that the riverfront should have mainly very low, and IMO mainly traditional buildings along the City's riverfront to provide a contrast and to show off the height and shinyness of the clusters.

I don't really understand the idea behind Airspace - planning permission is in place for countless towers so what ever the debates and whatever the outcome of votes etc the city's future look is pretty much wrapped up anyway - Airspace is about 15 yrs too late.

London is well on its way to a Far East City skyline, anyone who has been to Bangkok will notice similarities with London - towers dotted down the length of its river with several clusters to one side of the river.
Whilst office buildings will almost certainly be contained in clusters in London the relatively new concept of high rise apartment buildings means further towers will be dotted across the capital - The Airspace exhibition seems to consider only office buildings and deals visualy with only the North side of the Thames...if you take into account towers at Wapping, The South Bank, London Bridge, Vauxhall, Deptford, Elephant and Castle, Croydon, Stratford etc even though these will be in clusters there are so many clusters that the Shanghai vision of London won't look so unobtainable. Also if you take Canary Wharf as an example - clusters spread - you have Ontario, London Arena, Greenwhich and Poplar - all with towers under construction or planned, yet all away from a contained cluster. I personaly believe the Shanghai on Thames vision is the closest to a future reality - its just not going to be office buildings that fill the skyline - but rather lower rise residential.Yup that's what I think and want. Multiple small clusters spread over a large area - comparable to Bangkok, Shanghai, or Tokyo. Paris is going this way too. The biggest clusters will be the City and Canary Wharf but there will be smaller clusters in Southwark, South Bank, Vauxhall, and Elephant & Castle. I used to want everything concentrated in the City and Canary Wharf but now I appreciate multiple clusters more - gazing across from one to the other allows you to appreciate the scale of the metropolis. :)

Well London certainly doesn't need a London-hai style skyline, That looks shit and wrong. It only gives anti-scraperists more ammunition :(

London needs to bloody well imporve the quality of design for skyscrapers going up at Canary Wharf!!! It's like they think becasue it's away from the main historic parts of the city they can get away with building bland blocks of glass and steal!

trouble is, these people are running a buissness, and cos it's so blood expensive to build in the uk they have to try and maximise space, thus box-tropolis. I'd love to see lots more curves and twists but i don't think it'll be happening anytime soon in canary wharf, still, it has an impressive effect everytime i see it.

The problem at Canary Wharf was that blanket planning permission was given in the Eighties to the original estate - meaning the current crop of towers didn't have to go through the scrutiny that is usually required. The new towers planned at Riverside and North Quay had to get planning permission in their own right - hence the designs are not as boxy and of higher quality.

Remember the Mayor has personally sent back North Quay for a redesign. Seems to me he knows all too well how blocky Canary Wharf has become.

BenL in some cases that works but on the skyline they still look very poor, and a better way of doing things, from an asthetic point of view, would be demolition and rebuild. There's a point on the metropolitan line, near Finchley road, and as you look out you can see bulky 60's tower blocks contrasting with tapering beautiful churches. We need more tapering skyscrapers and more tower blocks with spires IMO.

Whilst I agree I think the most important thing is that council estates are of a high quality. If we can afford to build brand new high rise towers demolishing the old ones as in the case of the rich City, that's great. Otherwise, gradually improve the living conditions inside and give a cheap-ish reclad which, whilst not turning them into beauties, will at least make stop them being hideously ugly. Also, they should (and are around Clapham Junction) varying the reclads slightly, with small features to make them slightly more interesting.

Cw has never been badly boxy in my view, but in future something slightly different would be greatly welcome (hense columbus :()

Of course I'm talking from a completely fantasy point of view Ben. In reality that's the only way to do it, with some exceptions, for now.

i think london should become a cluster city, but i wish the clusters were much much bigger, the city is such a small area and canary wharf is in a dodgy position near that airport

sorry to revive a very ancient thread here, but I'm desperately trying to get hold of the airspace renderings for the different types of skyline London might develop. All I can find are the tiny quicktime panoramas from the website which are useless to anyone without a magnifying glass.

I'd be incredibly grateful if someone could direct me to some larger versions of these panos !