Trinity EC3

Location: London, United Kingdom

Client: Beetham Organization Ltd

Date: 2009 Competition

Total Area: 120,000m²

Budget: £350 million

Team credits:

FOA Partner in charge: Alejandro Zaera-Polo

Project Architect: Penny Sperbund

Design Team: Laia Celma, Guenter Gassner, Pablo Gomez Garcia, Maider Llaguno-Munitxa, Nankuei Lyn, Arjan Scheer, Manuel Singer, Azizah Sulor

The Trinity project was a regeneration project located in one of the most degraded parts of the Eastern edge of the City of London. The project comprised approximately 120,000m² of office space plus 2500m² of retail facilities within London’s financial district. Our aim was to improve the site by increasing density levels through a coordinated reorganisation of public spaces and transport infrastructure, including relocating the existing Bus Terminal and providing a new London Underground entrance within the complex.

Our massing strategy is driven by the insertion of three freestanding, central core, large floorplate office buildings within the site’s geometrical specificities. The design draws on the integration between solid and void, characteristic of the medieval qualities of the City of London’s urban structure, and was conceived as a campus of buildings around a public galleria.

The three buildings in the complex were able to operate independently. The volume on the corner between Aldgate High St. and Minories reached 90m to mark the presence of the complex to St. Botolph’s Square while the other two buildings, restricted by the height limitations of the Mayor’s protected views from Queens Walk, will remain lower, mediating the height of the corner volume with the surrounding fabric.

Some sectors of the building’s envelopes are gently tilted to adjust the default prismatic volumes to the geometrical specificities of the site, to reflect the sky daylight into the courtyard, and to provide a partial cover of the public space and consistent coronation to the volumes. The complex will appear as a cluster of crystals of varying heights and geometries with interstitial public spaces.

The reflective skin exfoliates as it reaches the lower floors, generating a system of canopies which will cover the public spaces and transport interfaces.