Kingsland High Street lies on the path of an old roman road, leading north out of the historic City of London. Looking back towards London the perspective formed by the road focuses directly on the Gherkin building in the distance.

The design from Archer Architects seeks to achieve two, opposing, goals where, firstly we look to re-instate, the quiet uniform street frontage and, secondly set up a formal dialogue without illustrious, all be it, distant neighbour.

By disengaging the heavily modelled tower from the lower buildings forming the street front this aspect of our design is seen as being adjacent to, but is not part of the High Street. This approach allows us to repair the street and public at this point and also the problems often associated with the bases of tall buildings.