The City of London’s former planning officer has taken a sideswipe against the rash of residential towers going up in the capital, by stressing that tall buildings should be primarily for commercial use.
In the week that AXA unveiled its vision for the tallest building in the City on the site of the abandoned Pinnacle development, Peter Rees said the focus should be firmly on how tall buildings fit into the urban environment.
Rees, who spent nearly 30 years as the City’s planning chief, said that many of the current proposals for tall buildings in London are about creating maximum profit from the site, and very little to do with what the capital needs.
Describing them as ‘piles of safe deposit boxes’, he continued: “Putting up a number of very expensive apartments to be bought by rich people to stash their cash doesn’t do anything for London.
“High rise buildings should be primarily for office use, because you can create high-density employment; for hotels, because guests enjoy a nice view; and for leisure space, that way something can be given back to the public. They shouldn’t just be a private entity for the select few.”
Rees was speaking at the launch of the London branch of the US based Council for Tall Buildings and the Urban Habitat (CTBUH), on whose executive committee he will serve.
London has a lot to offer in the context of integrating tall buildings into a historic urban environment, said the CTBUH. “The UK may be the short cousin, but that doesn’t mean it has any less of a story to tell.”
