Steel frame for City of London’s tallest building

Plans are being advanced to construct the City of London’s tallest skyscraper at 1 Undershaft, a site currently occupied by the London headquarters of insurance giant Aviva.

Architect Avery Associates has been working on a design that would see the site’s existing 118m tall tower demolished and replaced with a steel framed sloping sided skyscraper rising to almost 270m.

The current building’s sister tower was knocked down in 2007 to make way for Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners’ Leadenhall Building [Cheesegrater], which stands at 225m tall.

“The dynamic exo-skeletal structure of 1 Undershaft is designed to achieve the minimum material weight and facilitate a very rapid pre-fabricated construction programme. For this steel is the perfect material,” said Bryan Avery of Avery Associates.

The plans for the building are for an office block with the potential for ground floor and basement retail units.

The architect says it has aimed to preserve the views of the nearby Gherkin with a building that has sloping sides and mirrors the adjacent Leadenhall Building on its other side.