New London Architecture’s eleventh annual tall building report was launched at the Tall Buildings Conference on Monday 17th March at The London Centre. The morning’s event was packed with revealing speeches and spirited debates from a diverse and exceptional range of presenters and panellists.

There was an undercurrent of positivity across proceedings, the watchword being ‘growth’, as significant new space will be needed to support London’s burgeoning population and employment. That space will need to be a combination of new and reworked buildings as adaptive retrofits become an increasingly important part of the capital’s renewal (accepting that refurbishment does not always provide the most sustainable solution).

Economic challenges are significant but not insurmountable if best practice is followed and that old chestnut of collaboration runs through everything the industry does. Whilst viabilities are stretched, rental premiums are being achieved for the best space in good locations.

All the metrics that are traditionally applied to buildings are increasingly being used to assess the success of public spaces. Inclusive, flexible, sustainable and diverse public spaces help to create neighbourhoods: the spaces between are just as critical as the spaces within buildings.

Two quotes from The City’s planners sum up the optimism of the occasion: “Go big or go home!” (Shravan Joshi) and “Change delivers heritage” (Gwyn Richards).

Catherine Staniland opened proceedings by talking of a ‘tale of two cities’, represented by NLA’s Tall Buildings Report that shows a drive for new commercial office planning applications but a sluggish residential market that is being hit by raised interest rates and the Building Safety Act in particular. Overall, whilst applications are up to 64, there have only been 6 permissions granted (and one refusal), meaning there are a staggering 57 tall buildings in the planning pipeline.

With an incredible image of the future city cluster as his backdrop, Shravan Joshi gave a very positive take on tall buildings in the city, suggesting that the strategy to cluster not only protects heritage but the environment too, given that the city workers have a much lower carbon footprint than the UK average because densification makes the most of existing infrastructure.

Commenting that the feedback from MIPIM, from where he had just returned, was one of ‘London growth’, he claimed that employment in the Square Mile has increased 25% since pre-Covid times, and the expected continuation of this trend means that the city will require at least 1.2 million square metres of new space by 2040 (a forecast he suggested is conservative and could be 1.5-1.8 million square metres). He said that 85% of this growth will be in the Eastern Cluster and that the retrofitting of existing buildings will have to play a part in meeting those requirements, with retrofitting still needing to deliver a net increase in floor space (for the first time, over half of planning applications last year were retrofit schemes).

A presentation littered with positive messages ended with the biggest of all: “Go big or go home!”

Justin Gibson brought us back down to earth with a cost and commercial take on retrofitting tall buildings, as a ‘new landscape’ has offered a potent mix of challenges, including covid, regulations, war and other geopolitical events, all of which have combined to push up the cost of central London tower construction by 30% or more in the last five years, to levels that are putting serious strains on viabilities. On the brighter side of the equation, there is a demand for Grade A space in prime locations, with associated rents at record levels, and a real opportunity for the refurbishment or even reinvention of existing tall buildings to minimise construction price inflation through higher speed to market, whilst providing a more sustainable solution through the retention of existing structures. Making such schemes a success depends on a clear brief, extensive investigations and teamwork.

The follow-on panel discussion built on these themes and reinforced many of them, with Kye Taylor highlighting the need for surveys to be incorporated into fixed prices for contractors to be able to play their part in minimising risks. Echoing the challenge of high construction costs and a more constrained supply chain, he nevertheless said that “there has never been a better time to be in construction in the Square Mile” because of the quality, variety and sustainable credentials of its buildings.

Colin Wilson reminded us about the boroughs outside the city, telling us that the London Borough of Southwark last year granted permission for 625,000 square metres of space, with active tall building locations including Elephant and Castle, Bankside, Canada Water and Vauxhall.

The most focused question from the audience came from Dan Scanlon, who asked the panel how the industry can reverse the impact of evident massive cost increases of recent years. Answers covered the need for increased productivity, de-risked designs, fair construction and commercial terms, a focus on designing to budget and the need for some policy shifts – not least a review of the extent of required cycle parking.

Opening his address with a reminder that the tenants of our cities (i.e., the public) need their perspectives considered as much as the tenants of our buildings, Gwyn Richards reinforced the message that tall buildings are needed because of jobs and that development needs appropriate supporting infrastructure (93% of commuters travel by public transport or on foot, with Liverpool Street, the UK’s busiest railway station, seeing 95 million people pass through it in 2024).

Gwyn explained that the City Corporation has developed the world’s first planning toolkit to assess the effects on its microclimate that will look for opportunities for positive effects such as shading.

He also reiterated that tall buildings are heritage, that “change delivers heritage”, noting as an aside that 85 Gracechurch Street has had to be redesigned to preserve the remains of the Roman Forum discovered during excavations in a permanent exhibition. He showed a future view from this slender tower looking across the roof of the historic Leadenhall Market to the Grade 1 listed Lloyd's of London.

He stressed that tall buildings need to be open seven days a week, beyond 5pm, citing Eataly’s wonderful street market in Broadgate. Tall buildings pay for such investments in the social infrastructure of cities, also bringing in money via Section 106/CIL payments, and in recent times transforming pedestrian permeability, such as through the consented designs for the trio of adjacent buildings at 55 Old Broad Street, 99 Bishopsgate and 55 Bishopsgate. Gwyn stressed the need to reinvent the public realm through these design and microclimatic interventions, but also by taking the public realm higher up, affording the public a chance to see Instagrammable views of ‘nautical dusk’. He closed by saying, “We are dealing with a new breed of tall buildings that are democratic and inclusive.”

Dan Scanlon then took to the stage to offer a developer’s view, focusing on three themes: employment growth, a ‘destination city’ and a sustainable city. In terms of buildings, he opined that tenants need to attract staff to the office, those offices need the flexibility for tenants to expand or contract, and all that needs to be viable!

Dan summarised the challenges of creating such buildings as 100 Bishopsgate, 1 Leadenhall and 99 Bishopsgate by using the word ‘balance’ – a necessary balance between cost, value and carbon that will “move the tall building pipeline back to the left”.

Jo Bacon switched the perspective from investor to designer/master planner, starting with the context of the previous Chief City Planner, Peter Rees’s, simile of beehives for city workers, who he saw as making money rather than honey, leaving their hives at lunchtime to gossip, which they would use upon their return to make honey! She also quoted Yolanda Barnes in saying, “The unit of value is no longer buildings; it’s the neighbourhood.”

Jo outlined the results of an extensive study she had been involved in for NLA, concluding that retrofit is not just for office buildings and that this approach is democratising London. To make that democratisation effective, seasonal, active management of estates is essential to build communities. Retrofit applies to the public realm too.

Those terms we apply to buildings apply equally to the public realm – where people “want to buzz” – where a flight to quality is just as important to avoid a stranded asset.

In the following panel discussion, Sophie Beagles of London Borough of Ealing represented another pro-growth borough, where in a predominantly low-rise series of neighbourhoods, density and high-rise (which are not necessarily the same thing) are concentrated in economic hubs and on transport hubs at Old Oak and along the Elizabeth Line, in accordance with its 2023 Tall Buildings Strategy.

Rob Samuel of Axa pointed out that local authorities are key in pushing sustainability and that longevity is an important component of that, meaning that space has to be flexible. Gwyn referenced the City’s Carbon Options Guidance, which attempts to avoid a repeat of the M+S situation by being more site-specific and accepting that sometimes the most sustainable solution is demolition and redevelopment.

Dan Scanlon summarised the challenges and opportunities by again using the word "balance" in a world where “everyone wants everything”. The right and achievable answers are a balance between the city’s ambitions, tenants’ ambitions and viability / deliverability.