1-Bay Study: Blackfriars Project

ONE BAY OF THE BRIDGE STREET ELEVATION, BLACKFRIARS PROJECT. 1989-92.

The facade design of our £M20 Blackfriars Project, designed for Rosehaugh-Stanhope was tenderedby Empire Stone and costed by Bovis. The JOA facade cost the same as the most expensive facade of the 1980's commercial boom, that of the SOM 'Chicago-School' building on Bishopsgate. The difference (apart from the level of Architectural culture) was that Bishopsgate had a huge, fat, floorplate to pay for it, whilst Blackfriars depended on buying a property that the Developer did not yet own. It charmed the City of London Planners so much they allowed it to tow through four, fatter, uglier buildings. These were the one's that got built, not ours. The developer still does not own the building on Bridge Street, without which ours remains an illusion pasted onto to a railway viaduct.

Innovations: The JOA Toolbox: "Automatic Architecture".