Field Trip to London Part 2

1 Oct '10: We were taken up the Broadgate tower by some of the building management team - it has a wonderfully impressive entrance mall and lobby, full of light, and angled space, and suspended glass screens. We were right above the railway, so the great tower seems not to come to the ground, the weight being carried on diagonal legs. We rose in the double decker lift to the 17th floor which has been fitted out ready for letting. Each floor is a huge column free space, with all of the core on the west side of the tower. Rain prevented us getting good photos from the glass wall. We moved on up to the change-level of the 18th floor, then another lift to a floor above (difficult to know which as it's based on hall-call, with no lift buttons, so our host accompanied us up). We were in an unfitted floor with bare concrete floor slab and the bare steel of the composite floor above - and the cellular beams spanning from core to wall - coated with fire cladding. Fit out doesn't happen until a major tenant takes the floor and decides on the layout. The team welcomed all questions we could think of until it was time to go. We walked under Exchange House (also by SOM in the late 80s and bridging 15m across the rail lines) and on to Liverpool St Station for a quick lunchtime snack.