about

Bloomberg London is an office building in London, which was opened in 2017. It is owned by Bloomberg L.P. and functions as their European headquarters. It is at 3 Queen Victoria Street, to the west of Walbrook, on the site previously occupied by Bucklersbury House.

The building was designed by Foster and Partners, and constructed by Sir Robert McAlpine at a cost of £1bn.^[1] It consists of two buildings, divided by a covered arcade. The buildings are linked by bridges. The arcade contains several restaurants, and reinstates part of Watling Street, an ancient Roman road.^[2]

The building is clad in 9,600 tonnes of Derbyshire sandstone with bronze ventilation fins. Inside, the floors are linked by custom glass lifts and a 210m helical bronze "ramp", which dominates the interior of the building. The cores of the building are on the outside, to create a single open-plan space inside. Express lifts take visitors from the lobby, a self-supporting "vortex" of three curved timber shells, to the double-height pantry on the sixth floor, with view of St Paul's Cathedral. Then visitors must take a second lift or use the ramp to access other floors. The building houses 4,000 staff, with room to expand. All desks are electric adjustable-height.

The building features artwork by Olafur Eliasson and other artists. Outside, there is a three-part sculpture called "Forgotten Streams" by Cristina Iglesias, which evokes the Walbrook river.^[3]

The building is noted for its energy-efficiency. It achieved a 98.5% score against the BREEAM sustainability assessment method, the highest design-stage score ever achieved by any major office development.^[4] Rainwater is collected from the roof to supply the vacuum toilets. The office floors are illuminated with 500,000 LEDs. The ceilings are custom aluminium "petals", inspired by the pressed metal ceilings of New York, which act as light diffusers, cooling elements and acoustic attenuation.