Architect start-up wins job to overhaul Eric Parry’s 2003 building on Paternoster Square
London practice Carter Gregson Gray has submitted plans to refurbish and extend the headquarters of the London Stock Exchange on Paternoster Square.
The three-year-old firm has landed its biggest job to date with its appointment by Oxford Properties to reimagine King Edward Court, a seven-storey building designed by Eric Parry and built in 2003 by Bovis Lend Lease.
The practice said the scheme’s principal objective is to open up the stock exchange’s activities, which are currently hidden from view, into a “public facing celebration of the beating heart of the City”.
Established in 2022, Carter Gregson Gray employs around 20 people and has been formed around its three veteran founders, Jack Carter, who worked for 17 years at Renzo Piano Buulding Workshop in Paris, Julian Gregson, who spent 22 years at Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, and Kevin Gray, who spent 16 years at RSHP.
The practice is currently working on several medium-sized residential and mixed-use schemes in Westminster.
Interventions at King Edward Court would include a new double-height glazed lobby designed to exhibit the market’s daily opening and closing ceremonies to spectators on Paternoster Square.
The scheme would also see the addition of several roof level extensions including a new double-height events pavilion, a single-storey roof terrace pavilion and a single-storey extension to the corner of the building.
Substantial outdoor space would be added to the site including a new roof terrace providing some of the City’s closest views of the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, along with a series of balconies at 3rd, 4th and 5th levels facing Paternoster Square.
Oxford Properties and developer Hines are the building’s long-term leaseholders, with the former acting as the scheme’s main applicant.
Oxford Properties said the intention of the scheme, which has been developed over the past year, is to update the building to current and projected office standards as it reaches the end of its first 25-year lease.
The real estate firm has entered into an agreement with building occuper London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) which secure’s the latters longterm interest in the site.
LSEG, which is understood to be planning to move into the neighbouring Allies & Morrison-designed St Martin’s Court for two years while the refurbishment is carried out, has appointed its own project team for the fit-out of King Edward Court.
LSEG’s team includes MCM as lead architect, RLB on costs, Cushman & Wakefield as project manager and Alan Baxter on structures.
Oxford Properties’ team for the wider refurbishment includes G&T on costs, WSP on structures, Newmark on planning, M3 Consulting as project manager, Turley on townscape and carbon, Velocity on transport, Arup on facades and Studio GB on landscape.
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