Description of the development
Central Saint Giles provides 66,090 m2 of floor space – almost double that of the old St Giles Court – split between two separate buildings. The 15-storey west block is for residential use, providing 109 flats of which 53 are designated as affordable.[2] The much larger horseshoe-shaped eastern block, standing 11 storeys high, encircles a publicly accessible courtyard comprising 27% of the site's area. It provides 37,625 m2 of office space with by far the largest floor plates of any office block in the West End of London, with 4,000 m2 on all but the top two floors. At ground level, 2,276 m2 of space is available for retail outlets and restaurants.[6] The block is irregularly shaped with recesses, projections and roof terraces intended to make it look more interesting and to break up its bulk.
The development was built on a speculative basis on the assumption that the office space would be taken by a handful of major corporate tenants.[6][10] Legal & General's commission urged Piano to avoid designing a "plain vanilla office building" and called for the new development to be "a fantastic place for people to work". As an incentive, it offered to pay an extra 10% above the normal going rate for London office developments. Piano decided to take the commission because, as he put it, "the client and the company involved were all about long lasting quality, without rushing. It is very difficult to do a job with somebody who has a short vision – in the end it never works."[17]
At ground floor level, the bases of the buildings are open with concrete columns visible behind seven-metre-high ceiling-to-floor windows of low-iron glass, which offers greater transparency than normal glass.[18] The courtyard plaza is ringed with eateries and shops, with two oak trees planted in the middle alongside art installations designed by the sculptors Steven Gontarski and Rebecca Warren.
The treatment of the upper floors provides a striking contrast. 134,000 green, orange, lime and yellow glazed terracotta tiles cover the façades in 13 irregularly oriented vertical panels on the external perimeter.[6][19] The façades facing the inner courtyard are lined with another eight panels covered with grey tiles, a design which project architect Maurits van der Staay says was intended to "ensure that the upper storeys did not detract from the transparency of the ground floor and to maximise the amount of light reflected back into the offices." The façades are hung on an internal chassis carrier system (a similar system is in use in another Piano development on Berlin's Potsdamer Platz).[2] Pierced by rows of identical windows repeated across the entire development, the façades are expected to be effectively self-cleaning and immune to fading. The colours of the façades are evoked in the design of many of the development's interior fittings, such as lift-door reveals, handrails and lift displays.[6] The tiles were produced in Germany by NBK of Emmerich am Rhein and mounted on prefabricated façade units in Wrocław, Poland, by Schneider Fassadenbau.[11]
The development has been designed with a number of features intended to reduce its environmental impact. It has received an "excellent" BREEAM rating on the basis of features that include 80% of the heating and hot water being provided by biomass boilers, while all of the water discharged from the cooling tower is collected for re-use in irrigation systems and the buildings' flushing toilets. Planted roof terraces laid out by the landscape designer Charles Funke are intended to absorb rainfall, thus reducing runoff, and contribute to biodiversity in the area.[20] Only ten car parking spaces are available, at a cost of £100,000 each, due to the insistence of Camden council that the development should be largely car-free.[21]
Piano has commented that he sought to "create a development that brings heart and soul into a forgotten part of Central London's urban fabric. A place that, by adding levitated, articulated and colourful buildings, physically expresses the people-focused and socially responsible credentials of modern corporate tenants."[10] He has said that his design was intended to fragment the outline of the building to make it less imposing, and that the ceramic façades were inspired by the appearance of brick walls and the cases of guitars and drum kits in music shops in the vicinity.[18] Explaining why he chose to make the building so colourful, he said: "The colour idea came from observing the sudden surprise given by brilliant colours in that part of the city. Cities should not be boring or repetitive. One of the reasons cities are so beautiful and a great idea, is that they are full of surprises, the idea of colour represents a joyful surprise."[22] The decision to provide a publicly accessible central courtyard was made as a conscious repudiation of the closed architecture of the old St Giles Court, which Piano described as "a kind of fortress."[17] He has said that the development's accessibility will make people warm to it: "As soon as people understand they can cross through the central courtyard, their attitude towards it will change; they will cross because it's a shortcut and it is also nicer."[17]
The affordable housing units of the residential part of the development were bought by the Circle Anglia housing association. United House and Londonewcastle bought the remaining units[23] which sold for prices of between £500,000 for studio flats to £5 million for the rooftop penthouse. Many are reported to have been sold to buyers from Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia seeking accommodation for visits to London and for their student children.[24] The office element of the complex was fully let by the end of May 2011.[25] As of August 2011, commercial tenants include NBC Universal, Google, Mindshare and Burson-Marsteller, and restaurants include Peyton & Byrne and Zizzi.
