Situated in the heart of London, the Moorgate Exchange is a £65m commercial 12 storey redevelopment. It provides 218,000 sq. ft. of grade A award winning office and headquarter accommodation.
Located next to Moorgate station, Moorgate Exchange is a modern architectural statement, providing a dynamic and high quality office space. Its steel frame enabled the use of large column free spans, creating virtually column free internal spaces and the structural floor zones made minimum depth, enabling the introduction of an additional floor at the top of the building, maximizing the lettable floor area.
The building is one of the first that uses infilled CHS columns designed using the newly developed “Firesoft” approach, resulting in not only one of the smallest column footprints, but providing inherent fire protection as well. The use of a thin steel frame further extended the internal floor space by allowing the overall thickness of the building envelope to be reduced.
Embracing site constraints
The site itself posed many constraints; its close proximity to Moorgate station resulted in the need to avoid conflicts with Crossrail tunneling that partially overlaps the site’s footprint that in part also determined the choice of structural strategy. The architecture of the building is a direct response to its local context, its west-facing wedge-like form responds to residents’ right to light in the Barbican, while St Paul’s viewing corridor resulted in a limitation on the building’s height. These constraints were used to achieve the distinct architecture of the building, the ‘wedge’ was creatively used to provide landscaped terraces in the form of sloped heather gardens at the upper levels, creating a sense of calm above the City streets.The architecture is made even more striking with the use of two-story high, 11-tonne V-shaped columns, coupled with the use of a glass façade, and gentle LED illuminated glass fins that rise vertically across the full height of the building over the main entrance creating a real sense of arrival.
Exemplary sustainability & future proofing
The building achieves BREEAM Excellent and LEED Platinum sustainability ratings. With passive design measures, high performance façade types, high-efficiency HVAC systems, and other conservation measures including rainwater harvesting and greywater recycling reducing stormwater runoff and mains water consumption, indicate a potential reduction of 30% below the Corporation of London 2001 Energy Code of Practice benchmark for commercial offices over 2000m2. Moorgate exchange is also primed for the future, with inbuilt flexibility allowing for different uses in the future, with the ability to introduce escalators and additional washrooms.Ramboll’s multidisciplinary team incorporated structural, geotechnical and civil engineering services, along with fire engineering and environmental flood risk assessments.
