| 8 Canada Square | |
|---|---|
 | |
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| General information | |
| Location | Canary Wharf London, E14 United Kingdom |
| Construction started | 1999 |
| Completed | 2002 |
| Height | 200 m (656 ft) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 45 |
| Floor area | 164,410 m2 (1,769,700 sq ft) [1] |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect(s) | Foster and Partners |
8 Canada Square [2] is a 45 floor skyscraper in Canary Wharf, London. The building is the global headquarters of HSBC Holdings. [3]
Having been commissioned by the owners of the Canary Wharf Site to undertake the outline design prior to gaining site-wide outline planning permission, and because he had designed HSBC's head office in Hong Kong, Sir Norman Foster was appointed as architect. [4]
Construction began in January 1999, with work beginning on the installation of the 4,900 glass panels commencing in the summer of 2000. The work was carried out by Canary Wharf Contractors. [5]
The topping out ceremony took place on 7 March 2001, with the hoisting in of the final steel girder attended by bankers, journalists and contractors. The first HSBC employees began work in the building on 2 September 2002, with phased occupation completed by 17 February 2003, and the building's official opening, by Sir John Bond, taking place on 2 April 2003. [6]
| Floor | Use |
|---|---|
| 43–44 | Lighting system for the building's crown, which also functions as the air intake/exhaust for the air-handling units on this level. |
| 40–42 | Audiovisual facilities for presentations, videos, and conference calls. |
| 9–39 | Floors 9 through 39 are occupied by offices and conference rooms, with the exception of floors 15, 25, and 34, which are "transfer floors" used to transfer between the four elevator banks. |
| 8 | The central equipment room (CER) on this floor is the building's main IT hub, containing necessary equipment for building operations, including local computers and networking gear. It also houses exchanges for the building's telephone extensions. Each floor has satellite equipment rooms (SER) for communication wiring, with over 700 IT cabinets on this floor requiring extensive cabling. |
| 7 | Air handlers, gas-fired boilers for generating domestic hot water, serving the level 5 gym changing facilities and the level 6 and level 1 kitchens and Uninterruptible power supply units. These units ensure an instant standby electrical supply for the eighth floor. |
| 6 | Client dining rooms |
| 5 | Gym with around 120 machines and partially used for trading as well. |
| 2–4 | Trading operations, including treasury, capital markets, and equities trading. |
| 1 | 850-seat Staff Restaurant that serves around 2,500 meals daily. |
| Ground | Lobby and Reception |
| B1 | Canada Place Mall/HSBC UK Branch |
| B2–B4 | Parking |
In April 2007, HSBC Tower was sold to Spanish property company Metrovacesa, becoming the first building in Britain to be sold for more than £1bn. [8] As part of the sale, HSBC retained occupancy control and agreed a 20-year lease at a cost of £43.5m per annum. [9]
In December 2008, after Metrovacesa encountered problems with re-financing the bridging loan that HSBC had provided it and as part of a wider debt restructure for Metrovacesa, the bank bought back the property. HSBC stated it had made a £250m profit on the deal. [10]
In November 2009, HSBC once again sold the building, this time to the National Pension Service ("NPS"), the public pension fund for South Korea. HSBC's income statement on completion declared a gain of approximately £350million resulting from the transaction. [11]
In December 2014, Qatar Investment Authority completed the purchase of the building at an undisclosed price, but the building was expected to fetch more than £1.1 billion (US$1.73 billion). [12] NPS was advised by the estate agents Jones Lang LaSalle and GM Real Estate. [13] [14]
In September 2022, a leaked internal memo stated that HSBC was considering whether to renew its lease on the building when it expires in 2027, or whether it would relocate to other premises in London. [15]
In February 2023, The Times reported that roughly 10 floors had been mothballed, having embraced home-working. [16]
In June 2023, the bank subsequently confirmed its intention to move out of the building by 2027 in favour of a property in the City of London. [17] [18]
On 21 May 2000, three workmen employed by Hewden Tower Cranes were killed in a crane accident when the top of a Wolf Luffing crane snapped off into the adjacent North Colonnade area. [19]
An inquest three years later had heard a special safety plug was missing and that there was no anemometer in the crane cab to measure wind speed, although there were no weather problems that day.
The three workmen were Michael Whittard who was 36 from Leeds, Martin Burgess who was 31 from Castleford, West Yorkshire, and Peter Clark who was 33, from Southwark in South London. [20]
A memorial plaque under a tree opposite 8 Canada Square is in memory of these three men who lost their lives that day.
In the summer of 2003, one year after the completion of the tower, the first incident of a glass panel was recorded when it had fallen from the 42nd floor. This incident was during the early morning hours, and no one was injured. [21]
On 9 June 2004, another window panel fell from the plant floor of the tower on the 43rd floor. This had mirrored an almost identical incident a year prior, this time with a reported near miss by a security guard in the afternoon.
Another incident was reported seven years later in 2011, when part of the HSBC signage fell off and smashed to the ground. The glass had fallen over 150 m (490 ft) onto the building's western entrance. The North Colonnade area of Canary Wharf was subsequently closed off while inspection took place. There were no reports of any injuries. [22]
On the morning of 22 April 2021 - coinciding with Earth Day, the environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion vandalised the lobby windows of the tower using chisels and hammers, attempting to smash the glass as part of the protesting against the bank's fossil fuel financing.
Those involved were subsequently arrested on suspicion of criminal damage. Damages relating to the vandalism amounted to approximately £500,000 were caused by the group.
Similar actions of vandalism were carried out by the group at Barclays Head Office also in Canary Wharf at One Churchill Place earlier that month. [23]
In early 2013, the tower underwent significant renovation work relating to the installation of new signage, replacing both the embedded lettering and hexagons within the glass panels across all four sides.
This work was carried out by contractors Tara Signs, who engineered and installed the new signage. The project was finished in late 2014.
The now current signage uses a specially formulated LED enhancing Polycarbonate, giving the appearance of black lettering during the day, and illuminated white during the night.
Lighting behind the tiles were also replaced from fluorescent tube lighting to LED, although rarely used.
As of 2018, the HSBC logo installed on the tower is now out-of-date, displaying the previously used font and positioning of the hexagon. It is assumed that the signage will not be updated in the near future due to the bank's intention to vacate the premises in 2027. [17]
Stephen and Stitt are found at the main entrance of 8 Canada Square. The pair were commissioned for the towers opening in 2002, soon to be the groups new headquarters.
The lions were cast within sight of the development by the Bronze Age Sculpture Casting Foundry in Limehouse. [24]
Canary Wharf is an area of London, England, located near the Isle of Dogs in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Canary Wharf is defined by the Greater London Authority as being part of London's central business district, alongside Central London. Alongside the City of London, it constitutes one of the main financial centres in the United Kingdom and the world, containing many high-rise buildings including the third-tallest in the UK, One Canada Square, which opened on 26 August 1991.
One Canada Square is a skyscraper in Canary Wharf, London. It is the third tallest building in the United Kingdom at 770 feet (235 m) above ground level, and contains 50 storeys. It achieved the title of the tallest building in the UK upon completion in 1991 and held the title for 21 years until the completion of The Shard (310m) in 2012.
The Citigroup Centre is a building complex in London. It houses Citigroup's EMEA headquarters and is located in Canary Wharf in the city's Docklands. The centre provides 170,000 square metres (1,800,000 sq ft) of floor space across two buildings - 33 Canada Square and 25 Canada Square, and houses the bulk of Citi's UK employee base. The buildings were separated in 2023, prior to a £100m renovation of 25 Canada square.
One Churchill Place is a 156 m tall skyscraper with 32 floors, serving as the headquarters of Barclays Bank. It is in the Docklands area of London Borough of Tower Hamlets in Canary Wharf. The building is the 13th-tallest office block in the United Kingdom and the sixth tallest building in the Docklands.
1 West India Quay is a landmark 33-storey mixed-use skyscraper situated just north of Canary Wharf business district in east London. Completed in 2004, the development was built by Manhattan Loft Corporation and the now-defunct MWB Group Holdings. The distinctive glass- and aluminium-clad tower was designed by HOK. With its knife-edge profile and elegant curves, 1 West India Quay was one of the first post-tensioned, concrete-framed towers in London.
25 Bank Street is an office tower in Canary Wharf, in the Docklands area of London. It is currently home to the European headquarters of the investment bank JPMorgan Chase.
40 Bank Street is a skyscraper in Heron Quays which overlooks the London Docklands. It is 153 metres (502 ft) tall, having 30 stories and a total floor area of 634,000-square-feet. The building was designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates, and was built by Canary Wharf Contractors in 2003. The executive architect was Adamson Associates. As of 2023, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat lists 40 Bank Street as the 31st tallest building in London and the 35th tallest building in the United Kingdom.
10 Upper Bank Street is a 32-story commercial skyscraper located in Canary Wharf, in the Docklands area of London. It was completed in 2003 and is 151 m (495 ft) tall.
The Shard, also referred to as the Shard London Bridge and formerly London Bridge Tower, is a pyramid-shaped 72-storey mixed-use development supertall skyscraper, designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, in Bermondsey, London, that forms part of The Shard Quarter development. Standing 309.6 metres high, The Shard is the tallest building in the United Kingdom, the seventh-tallest building in Europe, and the second-tallest outside Russia behind the Varso Tower in Warsaw, which beats the Shard by less than half a metre. It is also the second-tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom, after the concrete tower of the Emley Moor transmitting station. The Shard replaced Southwark Towers, a 24-storey office block built on the site in 1975.
1 Cabot Square is a 21-floor office building in Cabot Square, Canary Wharf, London, England. From its completion in 1991 until 2023, the building's primary tenant was Credit Suisse.
Riverside South is a proposed skyscraper development in Canary Wharf, London. Some below ground-level work was completed by 2014 on behalf of investment bank J.P. Morgan & Co., which bought a 999-year lease on the site with the intention of making the building its London office, but the firm has now moved into an existing Canary Wharf building. Future plans for Riverside South have not been publicised.
Heron Quays West is a skyscraper development under construction in Canary Wharf, London. The plan is for two large skyscrapers connected by a large atrium at the base, not unlike the Riverside South development. The site is at the south west of the Canary Wharf site off Bank Street. Developers for the project are the Canary Wharf Group.
Metrovacesa S.A. is a major Spanish property company, headquartered in Madrid, which was the largest publicly traded real estate developer in the Eurozone. The company is primarily focused on the leasing of a range of property in France and Spain, which comprises around 80% of its portfolio.
St George Wharf Tower, also known as the Vauxhall Tower, is a residential skyscraper in Vauxhall, London, and part of the St George Wharf development. At 181 metres (594 ft) tall with 50 storeys, it is the 20th-tallest building in London and was the tallest residential building in the United Kingdom on its completion.
The Standard Chartered Bank Building is a skyscraper located in Central, Hong Kong. The tower rises 42 storeys and 191 metres (627 ft) in height. The building was completed in 1990. It was designed by architectural firm P & T Architects & Engineers Ltd.
25 Churchill Place is a 118 metres (387 ft) tall skyscraper in the eastern part of the London financial district Canary Wharf. It was built in 2014 and has 23 storeys. The building was developed by Canary Wharf Group and designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox.
Landmark Pinnacle is a 233-metre (764 ft) skyscraper constructed by developer Chalegrove Properties in Marsh Wall on the Isle of Dogs, London, United Kingdom. The 75-storeys Landmark Pinnacle is a short distance west from the financial center of Canary Wharf. It is the tallest residential tower in the United Kingdom, the tallest residential building in western Europe and has more habitable floors than any other building in western Europe. As of 2023, Landmark Pinnacle is the fourth-tallest building in the United Kingdom. The development was formerly known as City Pride, the same name as the public house it replaced, before a name change in 2016.
452 Fifth Avenue is an office building at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 40th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The building primarily consists of the 30-story, 400-foot (120 m) HSBC Tower, completed in late 1985 and designed by Attia & Perkins. The 10-story Knox Building, a Beaux-Arts office building designed in 1902 by John H. Duncan, is preserved at the base of the skyscraper. 452 Fifth Avenue faces Bryant Park immediately to the north.
One Park Drive is a residential skyscraper situated in the south west corner of Wood Wharf, within the Canary Wharf development on the Isle of Dogs, London.
51°30′19″N0°01′02.6″W / 51.50528°N 0.017389°W
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