What we're reading: A brand-new second-hand skyscraper
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Rendering via KPF
It's "the world's most ambitious skyscraper renovation," per Bloomberg — the transformation of HSBC's headquarters into a mixed-use development that will include not only retail but even residential components.
Why it matters: Office conversions almost never tackle a building this iconic, this large (1.1 million square feet), or this new (the tower was officially opened in 2003).
Where it stands: Norman Foster's 8 Canada Square, in London, was designed in an era where banks wanted massive floor plates for open trading floors.
- Today, 10 of its 45 floors have already been mothballed, and HSBC will move to the City of London when its lease expires in 2027.
- The building's owner, the Qatar Investment Authority, hired Elie Gamburg, of architecture firm KPF, to reinvent the building for a post-pandemic world.
The intrigue: Huge floor plates don't easily lend themselves to other uses.
- To bring light and ventilation into the building, parts of those floors will be demolished to create "solar chimneys" — columns where hot air can rise and escape.
- "We can massively cut down the energy use of the building by doing that," says Gamburg.
The bottom line: The quantity of embedded carbon in a building this size is enormous. By converting rather than replacing, the owners are being maximally environmentally responsible.
- As architect Carl Elefante famously put it: "The greenest building is the one already standing."
