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Commercial Workplace

 

National Winner/Winner Scotland Region
The Tun, 111 Holyrood Road, Edinburgh

Most developers would acknowledge that timing and luck play a significant part in their fortunes, and Whiteburn Holyrood, as developers of The Tun, would probably acknowledge that they have had their fair share of luck here. The building forms part of a masterplan for a new commercial quarter in Edinburgh, located on the edge of the Old Town. The site also has the benefit, at least from the upper levels, of fine views of Salisbury Crags. These are certainly assets, but nonetheless a commercial development built on this site would always have involved an element of pioneering. A stroke of fortune therefore came with a decision to locate the Scottish Parliament in this area, just 200m from The Tun site.

You have to put yourself in the way of luck, however, and to make the most of it - and this award is not for good fortune, but for recognising the opportunity in the first place, and then for the quality of execution.

Starting with some retained elements of the former William Younger Brewery, the development team have turned a long, narrow (and therefore difficult) site into an effective development by the addition of an uncompromisingly modern building. Nobody could lay an accusation of commercial blandness against this, and there is perhaps almost too rich a combination of materials: pre-patinated copper, zinc, granite, high quality exposed concrete, polished plaster, Caithness stone, glazing, and more - but the result is striking and full of character. Risks have also been taken with the organisation of the space, particularly in the addition of an open mezzanine gallery running down the centre of the top floor, which pays scant regard to the traditional requirement for partitioning on a fixed planning grid.

The proof in the pudding is in the letting, however, and The Tun is now fully occupied by a mix of organisations who, supported by the mixed uses in the building (a restaurant and bar at ground floor level, and a restaurant proposed at roof level), have the potential to produce the kind of synergies of occupation envisaged by the developer in setting the concept.

Winner London Region - Sponsored by Zumtobel Staff Lighting
3 Sheldon Square, Paddington Central, London W2

What a challenge. The triangle of land that is being redeveloped as Paddington Central is bounded on one side by the railway tracks coming into Paddington Station, on the second side by the elevated section of the A40, and on the third by the Grand Union Canal - the only obvious asset. At a time when the importance of public realm is increasingly being recognised, here is a place that had virtually none.

This is not a new challenge, and many of the best examples of commercial development (Broadgate, Brindleyplace and others) are exercises in placemaking. Few starting propositions, however, can have been as tough as this site. This is, though, a place where major office development belongs: a public transport interchange that provides direct rail routes to Heathrow, Thames Valley and the West Country, four tube lines, and ten bus routes.

3 Sheldon Square is the first of the planned office buildings to be occupied. It displays real competence in the developer's art: large, deep floor plates of a kind more often found in an out-of-town business park, full-height glazing, and all the elements of an institutional specification for West End offices.

The office buildings are then supported by a number of on-site amenities, with shops, cafes and a health club, arranged around restrained yet striking landscaped amphitheatre, and with the public realm punctuated by imaginative artwork. All in all, the scheme has significantly increased occupier choice in London, placed business in a location where it needs to be, and turned a difficult land-locked site into an identifiable address.

Commended 30 Finsbury Square, London EC2

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