Maria Smith, architect and founding director of transdisciplinary architecture and engineering practice Interrobang, on SOM’s Exchange House in the City of London.
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I’ve had a soft spot for SOM’s Exchange House in Broadgate since I studied it at the University of Bath, where architecture and engineering are taught together. It’s an excellent example of a truly integrated architecture and engineering team working to create something ingenious and beautiful.
This is a building that’s a bridge and a bridge that’s a building. It’s a fabulous example of an onerous constraint generating something wonderful; here the requirement to build over the railway tracks outside Liverpool Street Station allowed the creation of something unique that might otherwise never have been conceived.