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Riverbank House, the new 430,000 sq ft headquarters for the Man Group on Upper Thames Street in the City of London was completed in May 2010. The building provides efficient, flexible office space featuring 18m column-free space arranged around a central core.
The form of the building was generated from the trapezoidal shape of the site. The north and south elevations follow the site's geometry creating a naturally dynamic relationship with the longer side elevations. This is then reinforced by deforming and rotating the trapezoid (left and right). The two resulting boundaries are then superimposed with the overlapping portion given over to external balconies.
The result is a building form which both enhances and exploits the expansive nature of the primary north / south elevations, while inflecting the longer side elevations to provide a more dynamic and varied streetscape on the narrow side streets. The balconies which are the product of the rotational geometry of the plan are intended to enhance the perception of the building particularly from tangential views up and down the River Thames and Upper Thames Street.