Buyckske Ruben
August 25th, 2007, 11:14 AM
Merchant Square Tower Approved
Published on 2007-08-06
The final part of the massive stream of planning applications regarding Merchant Square in Paddington Basin, London, has been approved.
Building A Merchant Square, with 44 floors and reaching 132 metres to the roof, or 150 if you're counting the very substantial glass façade that rises past it, still falls just short of being the City of Westminster's first skyscraper missing the 500 foot limit by just a smidgeon.
The tower is a mostly residential block with 223 apartments within including 68 affordable homes on the lowest ten floors. There will however be public access to the 43rd floor that will be accessible by a shuttle lift and have an observation platform with views of 270 degrees.
It's been designed by Perkins & Will who along with the Kalyvides Partnership have been heavily involved in the design phase of Merchant Square that in total has 559 homes, and almost 100,000 square metres of office space.
Rather than file one planning application and risk the entire project being rejected because one building would prove unacceptable to the notoriously hard-to-please City of Westminster planning committee, planning consultants DP9 split the application up so that the individual parts could be considered separately.
The approval of Building A, despite the grand height of it compared to everything else in Westminster will however have taken few by surprise. A precedent already existed as the roof height was identical to a previously approved building planned by Richard Rogers for the same site.
Residential towers are proving hugely popular in London at the moment with the market seemingly insatiable as the capital's population booms although incredibly this is still one of only a few of this height proposed for outside Docklands.
This doesn't mean Paddington isn't an ideal location. There's a close proximity to the eponymous railway station, the Heathrow Express, and the Arab heart of London along nearby Edgware Road making it a hotspot for those from the Middle East who want a London des-res making the scheme look like a smart move for developer, the Paddington Development Corporation.
SOURCE: http://www.skyscrapernews.com/news.php?ref=1053
http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/1053MerchantSquareTowerApproved_pic1.jpg
http://www.skyscrapernews.org/images/pics/4675MerchantSquareBuildingF_pic1.jpg
Published on 2007-08-06
The final part of the massive stream of planning applications regarding Merchant Square in Paddington Basin, London, has been approved.
Building A Merchant Square, with 44 floors and reaching 132 metres to the roof, or 150 if you're counting the very substantial glass façade that rises past it, still falls just short of being the City of Westminster's first skyscraper missing the 500 foot limit by just a smidgeon.
The tower is a mostly residential block with 223 apartments within including 68 affordable homes on the lowest ten floors. There will however be public access to the 43rd floor that will be accessible by a shuttle lift and have an observation platform with views of 270 degrees.
It's been designed by Perkins & Will who along with the Kalyvides Partnership have been heavily involved in the design phase of Merchant Square that in total has 559 homes, and almost 100,000 square metres of office space.
Rather than file one planning application and risk the entire project being rejected because one building would prove unacceptable to the notoriously hard-to-please City of Westminster planning committee, planning consultants DP9 split the application up so that the individual parts could be considered separately.
The approval of Building A, despite the grand height of it compared to everything else in Westminster will however have taken few by surprise. A precedent already existed as the roof height was identical to a previously approved building planned by Richard Rogers for the same site.
Residential towers are proving hugely popular in London at the moment with the market seemingly insatiable as the capital's population booms although incredibly this is still one of only a few of this height proposed for outside Docklands.
This doesn't mean Paddington isn't an ideal location. There's a close proximity to the eponymous railway station, the Heathrow Express, and the Arab heart of London along nearby Edgware Road making it a hotspot for those from the Middle East who want a London des-res making the scheme look like a smart move for developer, the Paddington Development Corporation.
SOURCE: http://www.skyscrapernews.com/news.php?ref=1053
http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/1053MerchantSquareTowerApproved_pic1.jpg
http://www.skyscrapernews.org/images/pics/4675MerchantSquareBuildingF_pic1.jpg