Ropemaker Place is a 21-storey commercial building in the City of London, the UK’s international business district, built to fulfill the sustainability ambitions of developer British Land as well as Arup. That meant being as sustainable as it is flexible for modern office use. What makes Ropemaker particularly striking is its 1850m² of roof garden terraces, one of many aspects of the building that contribute to it being both BREEAM ‘Excellent’ and the first building in the City of London to achieve Platinum LEED rating.
Developer British Land allocated the design and construction to only two organisations, Arup as architect, structural, and building services designer with specialist acoustics, communications and façade engineering; and Mace as project manager, construction manager, and cost consultant. Arup used an integrated approach design approach that applied our broad range of expertise to the task of creating 55,000m² of office space and 1270m² of retail facilities within a sustainable city-centre project.
Ropemaker Place is a building integrated into its surroundings rather than being an ‘object’ building. Conceived as a simplified Chinese puzzle, the building is composed of six large-scale interlocking cubic forms, rising up as a series of garden terraces and contributing to the townscape rather than calling attention away from it. The end result is a working environment of the highest quality and desirability, earning it the British Construction Industry’s Major Projects Award for 2009.