Project Mural

• Rooftop Gardens

1 London Wall Place is a circa 300,000 sq ft building arranged over 12 storeys incorporating over 35,000 sq ft of roof terraces for exclusive tenant use. Occupied by Schroders plc, a British multinational asset management company, the new office allowed them to bring most of their London staff into a single building for the first time. The world class space embraces agile, collaborative and innovative practices and the roof terraces are a key element and asset for the staff in the new working environs.

The highly specified interior species required similarly matching external terraces for staff to both work and relax in. Townshend Landscape Architects created a series of highly geometrised spaces where architectural details were all perfectly aligned with paving, decking, benches and planter joints producing very strong designed spaces. Multistem trees and shrubs were combined with densely planted bulbs and herbaceous planting to soften the lines and provide beautifully crafted spaces which move with the winds on these often exposed terraces.

Plenty of timber seating was integrated into the planter design which also included lighting, power and data points and storage units to make the space as flexible and useable as possible for the staff. Loading restrictions limited the planter heights but localised mounding was used to create the soil depth necessary for the feature trees and shrubs. Insulation took up a lot of the available depth so ramps were used to transition the finished roof levels with the door thresholds allowing access for all. Each terrace had a boosted water supply allowing automatic irrigation which was controlled from the plant room in the basement.

The site sits within a small area known to be home to one of the UK’s rarest bird species: the black redstart. There are estimated to be less than 100 breeding pairs of this bird in the UK, and some of this population live and breed in London’s heavily built-up Square Mile. The 11 garden terraces include nesting boxes for birds and bats and a range of water features and plants to encourage foraging and breeding.

Delays to the build severely affected the contract start date but once live the project proceeded well. There was no crane so all materials were loaded out via the goods lifts which was generally made available to us out of hours. Working within the tolerances of cut natural stone and planter manufacturing maintaining the alignments on the joints was very difficult and took a lot of very detailing planning and setting out.