Virtual Office

London Virtual Office & Office Space (part 2)

City of london (Square mile)

The City of London is poised for further development in skyscrapers of greater height, grandeur and uniqueness. These would include The Bishopsgate Tower, which has been uniquely designed with a helter-skelter motive. With a façade that resembles a snakeskin, this tower is to be built to sustain a natural ventilation system as well as the use of natural light. At a height of 945 ft, the Bishopsgate Tower has levels 3 to 9 planned to be utilized for financial trading purposes out of a total of 52 floors.

Another skyscraper in the works is the Minerva Building standing at a height of 712 ft and to be located along Houndsditch Street and built with 53 floors in total. The key feature of this structure is the fact that it is the first building in London to provide more than 1,000,000 sq feet of floor space, with 4 trading floors and space for a restaurant at the top floor. Apart from that, the design resembling 4 open books built with aluminum and glass, and also with an energy saving ventilation system for the façade.

Indeed there are many other towers that are currently being constructed within the city of London, such as The Leadenhall Building and the Heron Tower. Other towers include the 30 St Mary Axe building, also known as the Gherkin or the Swiss Re Tower. Standing at 590 ft tall, this unique building designed to the shape of a slice of pickle has won its designers the RIBA Stirling Prize award. Indeed the cone shaped design had been intended to reduce wind turbulence in addition to energy saving features incorporated also with natural ventilation. Additionally, glazing within the shaft creates heat insulation for the building. This shaft pulls air from the building during the summer and passive solar heating during the winter. The main tenant of this building is the Swiss Re re-insuring company, with other tenants such as the Hypo Real Estate Bank International, Allianz and Cardinal Asset Management occupying other floors in this building. With this, the 30 St Mary Axe building would be a suitable location for a virtual office or an office space setup, especially for corporations involved in the financial industry.

The BT Tower at 60 Cleveland Street is one of the most famous buildings within the city of London. Previously known as the Post Office Tower or the London Telecom Tower, this 574 feet tower had been used to support microwave aerials as well as for telecommunications transmission. Apart from that, the cylindrical shape was designed to enable it not to shift more than 25 cm in winds of up to 150 km/h. Today, the BT Tower is one of the major communications hubs in London, and is still used for microwave links. Furthermore, televisions such as BBC and other broadcasters are also using this tower for broadcasting purposes. A rotating tower has also been built at the top of the tower, and completes one circle every 22 minutes.

The King William Street is where the Bank of London is located. Other than being located in the financial district of the Square Mile, King William Street comprises of a host of hotels such as the Threadneedles Hotel, restaurants such as Pret a Manger and bookstores such as WH Smith.

Threadneedle Street, which crosses with King William Street, is the former location of the London Stock Exchange until the year 2004. Currently this is where The Baltic Exchange was founded. Apart from that, there are also many restaurants located in the vicinity of this street such as Caffe Nero and shopping outlets such as the French Connection.

The London Wall Street which was historically a defensive wall built along the river Thames, now has its pieces at the Museum of London. This street runs from the Museum of London at the west to the area of Bishopsgate at the east. Many of the establishments located along this street include pubs like The Scottish Pound and restaurants such as the Sri Siam City. Shopping is also good here with men’s shops such as TM Lewin. Also the London Guildhall University is located along the London Wall Street.