Rachael Owens, Head of Sustainability at Buckley Gray Yeoman explores how the design team at 25 Cannon Street created a direct and meaningful connection between building users and the natural world, through the lens of Terrapin Bright Green’s ‘14 Patterns of Biophilic Design’. 

Situated adjacent to St. Paul’s Cathedral, our reworking of this six-storey neo-classical building is grounded in an approach to occupant wellbeing, and the value of natural spaces and experiences. The project has created 116,000 sq ft of high-quality office space, for our client Pembroke.

Originally designed by Jean Paul Carlhian in association with RHWL Architects in 2001, the existing building lacked daylight within the office floorspace and had no external amenity space for the public or the building’s users. We were asked to significantly remodel the building to deliver an attractive, modern workplace, complete with improved floor-to-ceiling heights, three levels of richly planted communal terraces and a new garden.

We know that green space within the city has multiple benefits: reducing pollution levels, cooling the city, and drawing-in carbon dioxide. When designed and executed with an understanding of biophilia these natural environments can have a tangible effect on people’s health and wellbeing. Biophilic design can have a positive impact on occupants’ blood pressure, stress levels, and mental health [1]. Incorporating the principles in a considered way can improve cognitive function, boost memory retention, and reduce attention fatigue [2]. In the hustle and bustle of city life, creating moments to connect with natural spaces, patterns and languages is valuable. At 25 Cannon Street architects Buckley Gray Yeoman and landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith worked together to incorporate biophilic principles within a new public garden and rooftop terrace. The garden, located alongside the entrance route into the building, provides space for building users and passers-by to linger, whereas the rooftop terraces are a respite space for building occupants.

The spaces provide both visual and non-visual connections with nature, with planting of different scales and colours, varied textures of grasses and leaves, rustling in the breeze and fragrant flowering plants, attracting insects.

At the focal point of the garden is a large pool of still, clean water, the presence of which has been linked to feelings of tranquillity and memory retention. Reflections on the water, of the surrounding foliage and St Paul’s Cathedral, add depth and complexity to the space.

Thermal and airflow variability is provided by patches of shade and enclosure contrasted with more open, exposed spaces. Occupants can choose from soft, warm wood benches in spaces of refuge and restoration, or cool stone seats, often accompanied by a light breeze, with long views and a sense of prospect. The gardens provide pockets of dynamic and diffuse light, with dappled shade and reflections from the water.

As these spaces become part of people’s routines, they will start to provide a longer-term connection with natural systems: through diurnal and seasonal variation, growth and pollination of the plants and trees.

25 Cannon Street does not consider biophilia only in living elements, but throughout the design natural, dynamic, sweeping patterns are present throughout the façade: repeated and at different scales. Internally a material connection with nature is created with soft timber flooring, and scalloped, wavy wall cladding, overlaid at different scales to create complexity and order. These biomorphic forms and patterns have been linked to reduced stress and enhanced concentration, linked to our brain’s ancestral preference for form and shapes linked to nature. 

At BGY we understand that humans are an intrinsic part of the natural world, our ancestors lived for at least 200,000 years [3] before the advent of the (relatively short) period of civilisation in which we now live. Our biology is evolved for the African savanna, and the more we can translate the sensory experience of the city to reflect this, the healthier, happier and more productive we will be.

[1] International WELL Building Institute (2020). WELL Building Standard v2.
 
[2] Browning, W.D., Ryan, C.O., Clancy, J.O. (2014). 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design. New York: Terrapin Bright Green LLC.
 
[3] Hublin JJ, Ben-Ncer A, Bailey SE, Freidline SE, Neubauer S, Skinner MM, et al. (June 2017). "New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens" (PDF). Nature.