City Hall, London (Newham)

City Hall, in the London Borough of Newham in east London, is the headquarters of the Greater London Authority (GLA), the regional government for Greater London. It replaced the previous City Hall, in Southwark in 2022. The building opened in 2012 and was previously an exhibition centre for sustainable architecture, known as The Crystal. Built and opened by Siemens, it was the first building in the world to reach the highest sustainable award level (see LEED and BREEAM). It was bought by the GLA in 2019 for the docklands redevelopment project.[4]

For the former headquarters of the Greater London Authority, see City Hall, London (Southwark).

City Hall
City Hall seen across Royal Victoria Dock
General information
StatusCompleted
Architectural styleNeo-futurism
LocationKamal Chunchie Way, London, E16 1ZE[1]
Coordinates51.507021°N 0.016111°E / 51.507021; 0.016111
Construction startedMarch 2011[2]
CompletedJuly 2012[2]
OpeningSeptember 2012
(repurposed as Greater London City Hall January 2022)
Cost£30 million[2]
OwnerGreater London Authority[3]
Technical details
Floor area7,000 sq.m. (80,000 sq. ft.)[2]
Design and construction
Architect(s)WilkinsonEyre[2]
Structural engineerArup Group[2]
Services engineerArup Group[2]
Main contractorISG[2]

The building is situated next to the redeveloped Royal Victoria Dock in Canning Town. The northern terminus of the London cable car, and the Royal Victoria station, the Docklands Light Railway and Custom House railway station on the Elizabeth line are within walking distance.[5] It is close to the London City Airport.

History

Exhibition and conference centre

The Crystal was built as a key part of the Green Enterprise District policy of the London Development Agency.[6]

The building was designed by Perkins+Will (fit-out, design leader) and Wilkinson Eyre Architects (shell and core), with Arup Group who were the building and civil engineers, and Townshend Landscape Architects who designed the public realm.[2] Event Communications were the exhibition designers,[2] responsible for the interpretive planning, exhibition design and creative direction, graphic design, media direction and construction management for the exhibition spaces.[7] The building was the first to achieve the highest sustainable building accolades, platinum and outstanding respectively, from the world's two leading accreditation bodies, LEED[8] and BREEAM.[9]

When it opened, the Crystal contained a permanent exhibition about sustainable development, and was owned and operated by Siemens. In 2016, Siemens sold the building to the Greater London Authority, who acquired it to use as a base for the Mayor of London's £3.5bn project to regenerate the Royal Docks. After Siemens vacated the building in 2019, it was used by the Royal Docks regeneration team but large parts of the building remained empty.[3][5][7]

City Hall

In June 2020, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan announced that he was consulting on relocating the headquarters of the Greater London Authority from the then City Hall in Southwark to The Crystal in order to save £55 million for the Greater London Authority over the course of five years.[3] The decision was confirmed on 3 November 2020; Newham Borough Council gave permission for a change of use for the building in December 2020.[10][11] The move was completed in the third week of January 2022, delayed from previous planned opening date in December 2021.[12] The building was renamed "City Hall" in December 2021.[1][13]

Architecture

The entire site is 18,000 square metres (200,000 sq. ft.) in size and the surrounding landscape was designed to be a sustainable urban landscape to help encourage a shift in the social ideology, making ‘sustainability’ more attractive and allowing people to participate in social activities within the site, which includes local food programmes and community gardens to help foster this principle.[14]

The building is a showcase for sustainable building technologies. At the heart of this are the building management system and KNX infrastructure. The building control devices, such as lighting, windows, blinds and heating, are connected using the KNX protocol. The building has over 2,500 KNX connected devices.[15]

  • Close up of the building
    Close up of the building
  • Aerial view
    Aerial view
  • View from the London cable car
    View from the London cable car
  • Glass panels
    Glass panels

References
  1. "Contacting City Hall and the Mayor". London City Hall. 22 May 2018.
  2. "Case Study: The Crystal, London". ISG Contractors. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
  3. "Mayor to consult on relocating City Hall to protect services". London City Hall. 24 June 2020.
  4. "London Assembly moves into new Royal Docks headquarters". BBC News. 22 March 2022. Retrieved 11 November 2022.
  5. "About The Crystal". 2012. Archived from the original on 16 September 2012.
  6. "Green Enterprise District: East London" (PDF). London Development Agency. 1 May 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 July 2011. Retrieved 17 November 2010.
  7. "The Crystal: A Sustainable Cities Initiative by Siemens". Event Communications.
  8. "Press". press.siemens.com. Siemens.
  9. "GreenBook Live". greenbooklive.com.
  10. "City Hall to relocate from central London to the East End". BBC. 3 November 2020.
  11. King, Jonathan (11 December 2020). "City Hall move to The Crystal given thumbs-up". Newham Recorder.
  12. Lydall, Ross (24 November 2021). "Sadiq Khan's plans to move City Hall to east London delayed". www.standard.co.uk.
  13. "Khan approves GLA move from Foster's City Hall to WilkinsonEyre's Crystal". 4 November 2020.
  14. "The Crystal by Townshend Landscape Architects « Landscape Architecture Platform | Landezine".
  15. "Case Study: The Crystal – A Siemens Sustainable Cities Initiative Featuring KNX – KNXtoday".
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