Central St. Giles solicits a completely different feeling, one that is much more engrained in the life of London. Nestled between the Soho theater district and Bloomsbury, the project’s several-hundred glazed, ceramic panels present a perforated skin that speaks to the street with the bright orange, lime green, and canary yellow colors of theater marquees. Here, as at the Shard, the designers have hung the façades as free planes with staggered placements, leaving lots of reveals that eliminate any sense of monolithic massing. At ground level, six small blocks surround an open court that can be accessed from different directions by five different paths, and Mediterranean-style cafés and restaurants occupy most of the grade-level spaces. On the upper stories, the volumes divide into a 15-story, two-part housing block on the west and a 12-story, U-shaped office block on the east.
The size of the office floor plates, of over 4,000 square meters (43,055 square feet), are unique to central London and have attracted several important media companies, including NBCUniversal, Google, and Mindshare. They have primarily organized their workspaces like lofts to encourage the collaborative methods of people in media, most of whom seem progressive and appear to be under 40. The top three floors of this block boast roof gardens and special outdoor work areas, while all levels have corner “winter gardens”—special glazed terraces for private meetings. Urged by the London Council, the developers reduced the amount of automobile parking in the basement to 40 spaces, while providing showers and safe parking for hundreds of bikers. The basement also contains London’s first biomass boiler, which provides central heating for the entire complex. Harvested rainwater is also used in the bathrooms and watering systems.
Housing presented the thorniest part of the planning of Central St. Giles. As with the Shard, the developers were obliged to provide a certain percentage of affordable units, but instead of relocating the lower-income residences to some other part of town, they kept them on-site. Half of the 109 units are social housing, rented for a minimum fee, while the other half are rather expensive apartments, selling for as much as £5 million ($8.1 million). The good intentions go only so far, though, in that the expensive units’ entries face the nice inner court while the poor ones enter from a dingy back street. Meanwhile, the elevations of the “piazza” were toned down to gray ceramic panels, leaving the bright colors for the sculptures and chairs, some of which belong to the restaurants while others are for those hanging out. (The space is always open to the public and has 24-hour security.)
Piano, in his quest to recreate the sense of freedom of association found in the Italian piazza, has given London a unique social space of great vitality. Such a program, with its youthful, loft-like offices; open-air restaurants; mixed-income housing; and, above all, public piazza that allows for the sort of biographical diversity that traditional cities have always provided, sends a clear message that no matter how much they may own, the city does not belong exclusively to the 1 percent.
Piano, in his quest to recreate [at central st. giles] the sense of freedom of association found in the italian piazza, has given London a unique social space of great vitality.