London 50 King Street | ?m | 50s | York | zedd architecture

[ericmacm]

This is a proposed development for two new 50s and 40s residential buildings in place of the recently-demolished Middlesex Health Unit building at 50 King Street near the Thames River in downtown London. These towers would be the tallest in London, beating the under-construction 40s Centro at 100 Fullarton Street and the proposed 40s 435 Ridout Street tower from Farhi Holdings. There is also a historical building on-site, the former London District Courthouse and Jail, which will be retained, with only the southern section of the site being developed.

While this project was announced by York last year, the architect is still unknown and York has not made a formal application to the city yet so there isn't a lot of information. It is suspected that the project is currently being reworked from these initial renderings that were provided. Back in 2015, the site was home to a different proposal undertaken by the Middlesex Health Unit itself, a much shorter and bulkier design from Tillman Ruth Robinson Architects.

Current design:

Old design:

 

[isaidso]

Current design:

Downtown? So a narrow concrete sidewalk, 40 feet of tarmac, narrow concrete sidewalk on the other side, and then a block long blank wall? Why is Canada so bad at this? There's no way in hell this will ever be a pleasant place to be when every square inch of it resembles a parking lot. Planting a tree every 50 feet isn't going to save it.

This isn't rocket science nor do you need a luxe building. You put inviting human scaled retail along the sidewalk and you build a wide sidewalk. This downtown Brisbane building is quite ordinary but simple design principles create an infinitely nicer street. Why can't Canadian cities get this basic thing right?

40 Creek Street | Caden

caden.com.au

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

50 stories now...goodness, you could see that all the way from St. Thomas!

 

[ericmacm]

PLEASE fix thread title to include LONDON.

I wanted to tag it with the new system but there is no database entry for it yet.

 

[Edward Skira]

I wanted to tag it with the new system but there is no database entry for it yet.

Hi Eric, Put London in the thread title nonetheless. Will make it easier for all. DB for it will come shortly. And thanks for the additions.

 

[ericmacm]

Hi Eric, Put London in the thread title nonetheless. Will make it easier for all. DB for it will come shortly. And thanks for the additions.

Thanks, I will do that for any future London threads, I just wasn’t sure how the moderators would have wanted it done now that we have the tagging system.

 

[cd concept]

50 storeys Wow! I can understand why they're proposing more taller buildings. The London area is going start to grow now that the Volkswagen battery plant is coming to the St Thomas area lol! 3.000 direct jobs and I believe a spin off 30.000 indirect involving something to do with this factory development!

 

[Paclo]

Additional renderings from zedd:

 

[Towered]

Looks strangely chunky for a 50 storey building...

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

I think it's the white balcony detail that gives the impression of a single floor per square, when there is in fact two floors per square...which may account for it's chunks.

 

[ben.thebean1]

Looks strangely chunky for a 50 storey building...

I think it's the white balcony detail that gives the impression of a single floor per square, when there is in fact two floors per square...which may account for it's chunks.

This is often called the Vegas window trick. It's a clever way to make huge buildings look less huge. One of the best original examples of it is the Bellagio, where each window is actually 4, sometimes 6 rooms. It makes the 43 storey building look more like 20.

 

[ericmacm]

An application was formally submitted to the City of London for this project last week. The official heights are 53s (176 m) and 43s.

Additionally, a video was (likely accidentally) posted on Zedd Architecture’s website with an alternative 3-tower design for this project that was integrated into the heritage courthouse building. It shouldn’t be surprising why this design was revised into what we see today. I have taken some screenshots from the video: