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Bracken House
Hopkins Architects | |
| location | London |
| function | office |
| contributed by | davidb |
The original Bracken House was built in the 1950s as the home of the Financial Times newspaper. It was 'H-shaped' in plan, with a central printing hall, flanked by two opposing wings of offices. In the late 1980s the methods of newspaper production changed, and the publication moved to a new home in Docklands. The parent company of the newspaper commissioned an architectural competition to replace the whole building, which was won by Hopkins Architects. The original building was then listed, forcing a redesign - and at the same time sold to Obayashi. The original printing hall was demolished and replaced by new dealing floors. This new doughnut-shaped volume is distinguished externally by the oriel windows supported on a slender new bronze external structure (a kind of Gothic-like high-tech). Internally, a new steel plate and glass block core, sitting within a central atrium, provides the main vertical circulation route. The original offices were gutted and refurbished.
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