Stratford Skyscraper | SOM

Stratford Skyscraper offers a new residential paradigm by re-envisioning high-rise living and how London’s rich variety of residential typologies can be brought into a vertically stacked building, creating homes that are not only generous in the area but also in volume. The brief centered on people and how they interact with each other in high-rise living. The 248 residences are a combination of spacious loft-style apartments and boutique single-story homes, topped by a dramatic three-bedroom penthouse and providing a total of 13 different apartment types. Manhattan Loft Corporation Founder and CEO, Harry Handelsman is excited about the impact The Stratford Hotel and Lofts will have on London: “Picture the perfect 21st-century hotel, what do you see? Impeccable facilities, immaculate service, and a great location are all vital. But it needs that unique pulse those famous Manhattan hotels had, like the Carlyle, the Chelsea. A club, meeting place, hotel, and home that never treats you like you’re ordinary”.

As designers, the challenge was to design a vertical community that would work as a modern neighborhood – that would reflect the area’s diversity and, supporting this vital social dimension, would encourage easy conversation and new connections. Working as an integrated group of architects and engineers, the design team shaped the tower’s innovative steel and concrete form to create impressive communal spaces that would provide a natural platform for interaction, while working from the inside-out to maximize views and natural light.
The hotel occupies the lower six floors and is topped by the first of three dramatic roof gardens, which are carved from the building’s ‘stacked’ profile at levels 7, 25 and 36. Each garden has a unique character, from quiet pathways through wildflowers to a party area, with space for barbecues and a bar. The tower’s strong social dimension is established from the moment visitors set foot inside the building, with a triple-height entrance lobby that is shared by both hotel guests and apartment residents. The double cantilevers that define the gardens also articulate this ethos, and give the building a bold presence on the skyline, signaling the eastwards momentum of the capital’s creative heart.

Stratford Skyscraper is a double-cantilevered tower with a uniquely engineered concrete and steel frame that has allowed the incorporation of three spectacular sky gardens dramatically carved into the building’s profile. The building has an unusual tower-structure, in which a cantilevered post-tensioned concrete supports the majority of the floors and steel-framed perimeter truss system at level 10 and 28. The Stratford promises to combine world-class hospitality, architecture, and art to encourage a new generation of long and short-term guests to make the East End their home from home. A long-stay hotel for the modern era that evokes the industry’s golden age. A more luxurious high-rise experience for residents, with double-height ceilings, a hotel-style concierge service, members’ club and a layout designed to foster a “vertical community”.

Project Info:

Architects: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Location: Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London, United Kingdom

Category: Apartments

Architects in Charge: SOM

Developer: Harry Hendeslman – Manhattan Loft Corporation

Area: 39299.0 m2

Project Year: 2019

Photographs: Alex Upton, courtesy MLC, Ed Reeve, courtesy MLC, Luke Hayes, courtesy MLC, Rory Gardiner, courtesy MLC, Oliver Douglas, courtesy MLC, SOM, Jake Curtis, courtesy MLC, Rich Stapleton, courtesy MLC

Manufacturers: Polypane Glasindustrie NV

Interior Designer (The Penthouse): Alex Gorlin

Interior Designer (The Penthouse Kitchens): Seamless

Interior Designer (The Stratford): Space Copenhagen

Interior Designer (The Transfer Floors): LSI Architects

Garden Landscapers: Randle Siddeley

Contractors Exterior: Bouygues UK

Contractors: The Stratford Lofts: Bouygues UK, The Stratford: ISG

Lighting Designers: Light IQ, Paul Nulty