A New Home for the LSO at London Wall West

Since the Museum of London vacated its London Wall home, the future of this key site remains unclear. Earlier proposals for cultural-led regeneration - the Centre for Music - were commercially unviable and the Corporation’s later office-led alternative provoked deep local scepticism about the loss of culture on this pivotal site and the acceptability of demolishing Bastion House against the City’s own planning policy in the context of the climate emergency. Last year the Corporation invited regeneration-led proposals and we were commissioned by Lloyd Lee of Yoo Capital and the London Symphony Orchestra to explore a culturally-led regeneration route that would retain Bastion House and deliver on the Corporation’s Destination City vision to transform the square mile into a world-leading leisure destination. The scheme delivers what London has long lacked, a first-class symphonic venue and a new hall lies as the centre of a wider education and cultural offer which will transform the character and vibrancy of this key nodal location. Bastion House is refurbished as a first-class hotel. The building, by distinguished architects Powell and Moya has a grand transfer structure at its base. Our proposals weave a series of landscaped garden terraces within this great portal linking one of London’s oldest public spaces - the Roman Wall Gardens up to one of its newest - a proposed public park created above the concert hall. To the west, a new office offers the highest standards of wellbeing and energy efficiency underpins the overall economics of the proposals which will deliver the concert hall without cost to the public purse. Aligned to City Planning Policy, our proposals take a ‘retrofit first’ approach to retain and reuse Bastion House the principal building on the site. The upper floors of the museum - a building too bespoke to repurpose - would be disassembled and reused in the construction of the new office building. While the cut slabs of the museum structure would lose their tensile strength, it is proposed to reassemble the harvested segments in shallow vaults so they act wholly in compression. In total 30% of the new office tower superstructure would be constructed from harvested materials, and 43% of the overall proposed structure would be retained as existing or harvested. Locating the concert hall at the centre of the site - a naturally low-rise structure - enhancing the setting of the Ironmongers Hall and retains good daylight levels to residential neighbours in the Barbican. While the cut slabs of the museum structure would lose their tensile strength, it is proposed to reassemble the harvested segments in shallow vaults so they act wholly in compression. In total 30% of the new office tower superstructure would be constructed from harvested materials, and 43% of the overall proposed structure would be retained as existing or harvested. Locating the concert hall at the centre of the site - a naturally low-rise structure - enhancing the setting of the Ironmongers Hall and retains good daylight levels to residential neighbours in the Barbican.