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London City Island is a new development on a peninsula in East London, formed by a meander in the River Lea, a branch of the River Thames. LCI is a former port area that is now becoming a residential area. All the buildings in the development zone were designed by Glenn Howells Architects.
A surprising aspect of the project: the brickwork facades - some with a glossy glaze and others with a sturdy natural brick - were produced in Veldhoven.
The inspiration and references were found in high-rise cities such as Chicago, says David Henderson, studio director at the London branch of Glenn Howells Architects (GHA). He talks about the development of the area on a terrace surrounded by twelve high-rise buildings from which the newness radiates. 'Even before the crisis, there was a plan for this location. Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) created the master plan and various architectural firms were invited to design thirteen buildings. With the foundations of two buildings already in the making, the entire project came to a halt when the crisis started,’ says Henderson.
The GHA design for one of the buildings was also put on hold. During the crisis, the contact between the architectural firm and client Ballymore remained good, even though this specific project remained dormant until 2015. Henderson: 'When things started moving again, the client asked us to revise the plan and check whether the story was still aligned with the current market.
They found that there was hardly any cohesiveness at all between the plans and that the buildings were all icons. Our advice was to aim for consistent quality of the whole instead of ambitious individual projects. We also used the images of Manhattan and Chicago as a reference: powerful buildings right up to the water's edge, particularly strong as a whole - as a composition.’ The client was pleased with GHA's proposal and the plans underwent further development.
The SOM grid was adapted for new building volumes: a particularly striking element of this is that the facades of the thirteen buildings are not at odds with each other anywhere. 'The floor plans are parallelograms: rectangles are virtually absent. In this way, the residents also have an optimal view,' explains the architect. The buildings are between ten and twenty-five storeys high.
Brick was chosen for the facades. Henderson: 'London has a strong tradition of building with brick: in the inner city as well as in the industrial zones. London City Island was the site where brick industrial buildings stood - you can still see them in the surrounding Docklands. Brick also fits the loft-like living space typologies that we proposed for this site: with plenty of space in the apartments, high ceilings and robust details.'
Once the GHA plan had been formulated, Ballymore wanted to build quickly. Very quickly. Henderson: 'The client expressed a desire for prefab. This obviously had direct consequences for the architecture but at the same time also created new opportunities. The first building level for all buildings was created on site, with a high level of prefab for the towers.’ The prefab elements were manufactured at the Byldis factory in Veldhoven.
The Dutch construction company supplied the elements ready-made, including window frames and glass. 'We regularly travelled to the Netherlands to view mock-ups and fine-tune the details. Obviously, you’re tied to moulds and a specific building system but there is definitely leeway with the depth of reveals and with patterns in the brickwork, such as at the lintels. And then the whole also needs to comply with English regulations. It was a fascinating process,' says the architect.
The buildings are distinguished mainly by the colour of the brick, as can be seen now that the final touches are being added to buildings ten to twelve - erected with elements featuring white, blue and red glazed bricks, all manufactured in the Wienerberger factory in Panningen. 'The decision for glazed bricks was a logical next step of the desire to work with striking colours. The client certainly played a role in this. The buildings need to appeal to an international audience. We reviewed all types of clay for the colour "red": we couldn’t find clay that was red enough for the client,’ laughs Henderson. 'If you want real red, then glazed brick is the only option; the client also understood that. The result was red, as well as blue and purplish blue glaze. So whatever colour the sky is in London: the buildings continue to shine.’
We liaised with the experts at the Wienerberger factory in Panningen about colour and details. The architect: 'The colour was decided quickly: we wanted a uniform colour. Further consultation took place about the details and the pointing. We especially paid attention to the transition from the in situ brickwork in the plinth to the prefab towers. It is vital that all bricks come from a single production run as you want a uniform colour.
This also applies, of course, to the pointing - sameness of colour and width is important both in the plane and in the connections with the prefab panels. The facades do not have a lot of ornamentation and there is a conscious reason behind that. Henderson: 'When designing facades, architects tend to want to make a difference down to the smallest details. On the scale of London City Island, these small details are much less interesting: it's about the buildings forming a whole.’ After the conversation we walk for a bit towards the East India metro stop and pause for a while at the East India Dock Basin: a piece of nature in buzzing London. 'You get a great view of all the buildings from this spot,' Henderson points out. And it is true: the residential buildings stand out vibrantly against the backdrop of the grey sky like a cheerful, self-assured cosmopolitan ensemble.
Van Dijk: ‘However, the client wasn’t really “sold” until I told him that we use full bricks and not brick strips’, explains Van Dijk.
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