Niall Farmer, head of UK at Gamuda Land, discusses the 75 London Wall office development and why it’s important to protect the city’s historic buildings
London is defined by arguably the world’s most recognisable skyline. It is layered with two thousand years of historic buildings, designed by world-leading architects from medieval master builder Henry Yevele to Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London and, today, Lord Norman Foster.
Few global cities have a heritage as rich as this. Honouring this heritage is crucial as we create sustainable buildings fit to meet the needs of this century. The tightrope we walk is modernising historic architecture without compromising either its iconic character or today’s sustainability standards.
A walk through the Square Mile will see you pass many of these iconic buildings, one of which is the former headquarters of Deutsche Bank, located on the site where a Roman wall once stood. In partnership with Castleforge, the Gamuda team is undertaking one of London’s most ambitious retrofits, delivering over 500,000 sq ft of best-in-class Grade A workspace.
Preserving London’s most historic buildings
The scheme’s philosophy is simple: retention over rebuild. We are preserving 100% of the substructure and 78% of the superstructure, slashing the embodied carbon that a demolition and rebuild would have released. When a building is torn down, the carbon invested in its concrete, steel and foundations is discarded with it. By retaining the existing fabric, we keep that investment locked in the structure while still expanding the building’s capacity by over 50%.
Nowhere is this thinking more visible than in the limestone façade. Rather than consigning the original handset stone to landfill, each piece is being carefully removed, documented and assessed before being repurposed into new panels manufactured off-site. It is circularity in its truest form: the original masons’ craftsmanship is preserved, the material is given a second life, and the streetscape retains its familiar face.
Behind the stone sits some of the most complex structural engineering underway in the City. The existing building has significant floor-to-ceiling heights and column-free floorplates. Extending it means taking a new steel frame up to Level 13 while progressively loading concrete slabs onto those existing post-tensioned floorplates: a delicate balancing act that demands meticulous sequencing, monitoring and coordination. Seven months into main contract works, the frame has already reached Level 9, with the structure being progressively loaded as it rises.
Retrofitting to lower carbon emissions
Just as important is what is leaving the building. The transition to an all-electric services strategy permanently removes fossil-fuel-based infrastructure, ensuring ultra-low operational carbon emissions for decades. Together with the embodied carbon savings, this underpins the project’s targets of BREEAM ‘Outstanding’, NABERS UK 5 Star, WELL ‘Platinum’ and LETI Band B. This suite of certifications proves that heritage aesthetics and high environmental performance can reinforce one another, each strengthening the case for the other.
None of this happens without extraordinary collaboration. Multiplex, appointed under a main construction contract worth over £250m, is leading a supply chain spanning steelwork, concrete, façades, and mechanical and electrical services, building on the Erith Group’s enabling and demolition works, which set a new benchmark for efficiency and innovation in the City. Architects Orms, structural engineers London Structures Lab, services engineers Hoare Lea and the wider consultant team have shaped a design of genuine rigour. Delivering a commercial retrofit of this scale and complexity on a constrained site bounded by roads on three sides is a high-stakes undertaking, and its safe, efficient delivery to date is a testament to a project team aligned around a shared vision.
The future of 75 London Wall
When 75 London Wall is complete, it will house more than 5,000 workers in a building that has grown from its own foundations rather than replaced them. Its significance, though, extends well beyond its own walls. It sets a clear blueprint for future commercial schemes that want to expand historic spaces sustainably, in London and in dense, mature cities worldwide.
The City can grow from its past rather than erase it, and 75 London Wall shows how.
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