Expert Panel Outputs for 2025: Tall Buildings Expert Panel

Summary by Expert Panel Chair Joanna Bacon, Allies and Morrison

When I first worked in the City, Peter Rees always talked about buildings as beehives. Proudly he would say:

“In our towers there are bankers, not bees. They make money, not honey. They fly out and they find the juiciest flowers and they collect nectar. And at lunchtime, that’s what bankers do. They go down into the alleyways. They find the pubs and the restaurants. Their nectar is information and gossip. They take it back to their building and they make money.”

Times have changed a bit – information is everywhere – in your pocket all the time.

The bees like density and at Allies and Morrison we are great supporter of the potential of what we call Virtuous Density. And what that density produces is the opportunity to grab people’s imaginations and dwell a bit, love the place you work and possibly spend money and learn something.

Now Gwyn looks after the transformation of the City, that I first knew in the 1980’s from a patchwork of fusty not very efficient predominantly low-rise buildings – complete with a bowler hat army - into what is now a great cluster of memorable projects with a necklace of increasingly better public realm spaces - improved also by stopping traffic and making cycling safe.

Yolanda Barnes talking at the Allies and Morrison Citymakers conference said the:

“the unit of value is no longer buildings, it is the neighbourhood”

The NLA Tall Buildings team completed their study a range of tall buildings – some twenty built more than twenty years ago and another twenty built in the last ten years and think about what is happening out there with the public real surrounding tall buildings.

What we found was quite encouraging:

Retrofit is not just for offices: The best clients, attracting the higher paying new tenants are retrofitting the approaches and public realm outside the curtilage of their buildings as a key attraction.
This is democratising London: Particularly in the City. Few buildings project security as being paramount (even if it is there) – we are seeing a breaking down of privileged space but more encouragement for everyone to partake
Lastly there is greater emphasis on outdoor, flexible spaces for socialization, wellness activities as well as work conversations to attract the next generation to both residential and office locations.

So really good architecture is not just about creating something tall and beautiful but it must also ensure a place in which it sits serves its purpose well and provides the most of engaging of environments for the people who engage with it.

Other notes we made included …on the positive side:

Modern public realm interventions are giving positive new energy to tall buildings over twenty years old
Landlords are increasingly setting high standards within the public realm for their tenants. Some are almost having to ‘out Amenity each other’ to attract higher value.
New developments are generally increasing capacity for people – enlarging pavements and opening up new public realm places with positive amenities for the general public
Seasonal activity and active management is welcomed – that might be spring bulbs…a Christmas tree…a festival. A Wimbledon screen and deck chairs…an annual sculpture exhibition. People notice the efforts being made and rcognise that this is part of community building
Shared servicing between buildings or smart logistics can positively improve the impact of delivery areas on the public realm - creating opportunities formore retrofit of the public ream

And on the slightly negative side areas still for improvement

Poor wind conditions continue to give tall buildings a longer term poor reputation
Restaurants and high level public access places are popular - albeit that should not remove the responsibility for excellent interfaces at street level
Privileged space is still sought by some occupiers – with some management positively encouraging the public not to dwell in order to create exclusivity including through overpowering security

Back to bees …People want the buzz…occupiers want to feel like (and be reassured by the fact lots of other people agree) that they are ‘at the centre of things’!

So the flight to quality that is being demanded of office space- for the best rents and sales- is critically also demanded of the public realm.

We noticed quite a few places where building owners are starting to get together to make residual spaces between towers better – or is being instigated as a result of an adjacent development. This is the way to go otherwise without maximising the value of that public realm there is another stranded asset that is not going to encourage people back.

So in the spirit of more creating more BUZZ …. We think the approach should be to stitch together of opportunities, make the most of daylight and nature, create exciting moments – all hardwired with sustainability while continuing to create a necklace of spaces for happy people. The ambition being they enjoy the experience so much they keep coming back, they tell their friends and their clients and mostly so they enjoy their working day.

The challenge of for the Tall Buildings group is to seek post occupancy real feedback to consider if this also what the users think about our city. Then the group need to refocus on the sustainability of tall buildings which is probably the best follow up from our engagement with the London Assembly members, in their call for evidence, but also our positive meetings with the NLA Chairs of the Housing, Technology and Sustainability to consider areas of mutual interest.