Commercial \ Sir John Cass Foundation

In 2015 we were invited into a limited competition to look at the commercial development of the headquarters building of the Sir John Cass Foundation (now re-named the Portal Trust). It is a listed building and was mostly leased out to a university. Adjacent to the site at 31 Jewry Street in the City of London, was a recently completed building which set a precedent for the volume of development that might be acceptable to planners etc. Demolition of the listed building would have been unacceptable so, with Arup engineers, we developed a strategy of redeveloping it and creating a superstructure of offices above with the roof of the listed building preserved and repurposed as a recreational roof terrace. The envelope in section of the building followed the precedent of that next door. The two listed buildings of high heritage value were preserved, and the main entrance was located between them and configured so that it also displayed a fragment of Roman wall preserved in the basement.

To our knowledge nothing has happened on the site since the competition was held.