
Each elevation features vertical and horizontal aluminium fins of many shapes and sizes which lend a massive and majestic aspect to Four Kingdom Street.
Tucked into a compact yet highly visible site adjacent to The Westway, Four Kingdom Street makes the most of its surroundings.
Its stepped northern elevation respects the angled Westway edge while its deeply shaded southern elevation opens out onto Kingdom Square, helping to frame this new public space. An abstract, glazed triangular form projects outwards on its western side enclosing a series of stacked meeting pods that take in dramatic vistas over west London.
Four Kingdom Street is the first of two office buildings to be completed that Allies and Morrison has designed for British Land at their canal-side Paddington Central development next to Paddington railway station.
The building aims to be more than just a place of work, but a place of interaction where one wants to be – to socialise, to have fun, to exercise and to relax.
The architecture takes cues from the building’s location on the site of a former railway goods yard with hints of engineering and transportation history found in the honest expression of structural details and mechanical components at a variety of scales both in the facade and interior.
The structural steel frame is exposed throughout, services components are revealed and integrated, rougher industrial materials, less often associated with commercial offices, are utilised: all contributing to reveal a personality – an office building with a bit of an edge to it.