marks barfield architects - more than meets the eye
The Cut Tower
Battle McCarthy and MBA were commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry to study the sustainability of high-rise residential living potentially leading to a new generation of high density towers in the UK.
Responding to government policy as set out in the 'urban white paper' and 'building a better quality of life', the study aimed to develop a programme to measure the key criteria that contribute to social, economic and environmental sustainability, to test the criteria against case studies such as The Cut Tower.
The Cut Tower is a scheme that delivers a mix of 72 housing units, office space and car parking. The mix of residential units contains one, two and three bed flats as well as 4, four bed penthouse apartments.The eye shape plan creates a dramatic landmark building that maximises river views to the north while maintaining a slender profile in the east and west, reducing over shadowing and downward wind movement to street level. The north side is fully glazed with floor to ceiling openings enabling living spaces to open up during summer months. A simple venn diagram was developed to illustrate the success -or otherwise of the 3 KPIs.