The resulting is an astounding level of attention paid to detail. "Some people say the reason it took us almost a decade to build this is we had a billionaire who wanted to be an architect working with an architect who wanted to be a billionaire," Bloomberg joked in his opening speech. "We had to build a test tower in Helsinki to proof of concept," explained Jones.Įven the curved sit-stand desks, hand chosen by Bloomberg who has one in his own office, were tested by teams in the New York headquarters before being installed. Foster + Partners held a competition to develop and entirely new lift system that runs as cantilevers off the external facade. The glass lifts are another feat of engineering. "Without the ceiling the sustainability wouldn't be what it is." "We wanted to see if we could use that straight-forward pressing technology to create something that was beautiful but also incredibly functional," said Michael Jones, a senior partner at Foster + Partners. The team from Foster + Partner was inspired to develop the panels by fin-de-siècle pressed-tin ceilings they saw on trips to New York. As well as minimising it's impact on the climate, the Bloomberg building has been designed to withstand climate change.Īlong with cooling the air with water like a radiator, the folds in the aluminium petals simultaneously reflect light from LED lights inserted between them and provide acoustic control by refracting sound. The miniature headquarters was then tested for a period of time at temperature highs on par with the tropics as well as sub-zero, arctic conditions. With no laboratory big enough to hold it, a warehouse in Battersea was procured and a 1:1 model with 30 workstations built inside. Salt water modelling was also used for testing, with a 1:50 scale model submerged in a bath, dyed salt solution injected and water flow patterns analysed.Ī scale model was also used to subject the building to extreme environmental stress tests. ![]() No expense was spared in the prototyping of the building's sustainability features. Computational fluid dynamics were used to test the airflow with digital models of the building. Bronze fins on the facade filter noise and sunlight, drawing in air through vents which pass over a ceiling carpeted with aluminium "petals" that regulate its temperature, before rising through a central atrium. ![]() The natural ventilation system was something that Foster claims has "never been done before". "The building itself is a testimony to those ideals." "Mike is inspirational as the patron of sustainability," said Norman Foster. The latter team, which has tripled in size in the past four years, is focused on developing AI and machine learning applied to financial markets.įoster + Partners joined the project back in 2010 and was given an undisclosed budget to invest in developing and testing a wide range of new technologies to design a sustainable building on such a large scale. The headquarters will unite the entire UK Bloomberg operation, which was previously spread over several sites in London, and house the company's 800 software engineers. "That's the beauty of being a privately held company we don't have to base decisions on quarterly earnings or shifts in the political winds." But at Bloomberg we've never made decisions based on short-term costs," he added. ![]() "Given the price of London real estate and the cost of construction materials the economics would bear that out. "For many companies our size, building a new headquarters would have meant opting for a glass skyscraper," said Bloomberg, who is the 10th wealthiest person in the world according to the Forbes billionaire list. "I’ve had some thoughts that maybe I wouldn’t have, but we are there, we are going to be very happy."įor the London building Bloomberg rejected the concept of a shiny tower in favour of building "the world's most sustainable office", a 10-story block with a frame hewn from Derbyshire sandstone and accented with hand-patinated Japanese bronze fins that reference the architectural language of the historic buildings that surround it. "Would I have done it if I knew they were going to drop out ?" he added. However it emerged that Bloomberg had made very different comments at conferences in Boston and Paris ahead of the building's opening, describing Brexit as "single stupidest thing any country has ever done" apart from America's election of Donald Trump as president. "Whatever London and the UK's relationship to the EU proves to be, London's language, timezone, talent, infrastructure and culture all position it to grow as a global capital in years to come," said Bloomberg's founder at the opening.
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