Helen Taylor of Woods Bagot and Rachel Cooper of Arup Associates team up to explore how deep basements may be the future of the city as density and population growth result in the need to dig deep as well as build high. Using their current joint project as a case study, they share their experience of building the deepest habitable basement in London and among the deepest in the world. Set to open in 2020, The Londoner will offer 350 rooms, multiple restaurants and lounges, a rooftop bar and underground spa with swimming pool, Odeon cinema, and a 1,000-capacity ballroom. At over 35 meters deep and containing a large percentage of the FOH floor area, the basement presented several challenges that required innovative architectural and engineering solutions from both teams, which are presented in the following interviews with Helen and Rachel.
In the video interview above, Helen Taylor, Senior Associate and European Technical Innovation Leader at Woods Bagot, talks about the architectural challenges of designing and building this kind of underground project. In the written interview that follows, Rachel Cooper, Lead Structural Engineer of The Londoner and Associate at Arup Associates, presents us the structural and engineering challenges associated with building the deepest habitable basement right in the center of London.
