Field Visit to London

1 Oct'10: DNC writes: The whole unit took a bus trip to London for the day.... rain rain rain, not the best time to be doing a walkabout.
  We started with the Building Centre in Store St, but for the first time we had a problem that we had never previously encountered: a large group had block booked the entire exhibition area and model and we only had time for a quick look, and a look at the building materials exhibition, then had to move on to Tottenham Ct Rd.
 We took the train to Liverpool St Station and walked up Bishopsgate to Primrose St, in the marketig suite by the Broadgate Tower.
   Paul Burgess of British Land get us an excellent talk, using the very detailed model of the whole Broadgate development, starting with the clearance of the old Broad St Station, and the first office building by Peter Foggo of Arups. The Broadgate Tower is presently the northern boundary of the 'City' but more buildings are planned by Fosters in the future, and the Bishopsgate railyards will be a major new development.
     Amazingly, some of the buildings from the early 90s are already due to be replaced by new buildings, 20yrs after construction.
    On the Tower site, a vast honeycomb concrete raft was built over the railway line before they knew exactly what would go above it. The tower (by SOM) was explained in detail - it is something of an engineering marvel being built in the air-rights-space over the railway lines..... and then we went to the tower itself.
More to be written soon....