Talk:30 St Mary Axe

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30 St Mary Axe was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Reviewed version: March 16, 2007

"This is achieved through a natural ventilation system which uses thermal effects to drive air circulation through the outer sheath of the tower, which is in effect giant double glazing. Double glazing in houses is limited in thickness to avoid convection of heat; in the Swiss Re tower, this effect is exploited. This cools in the summer, and can be regulated to warm in the winter through passive solar heating. Sunlight is reflected down through the tower, making the working environment more pleasing, and keeping lighting costs down."

- I've read this paragraph two or three times, and still cannot grasp the meaning (and I come from a science background). Can someone who does understand it please tidy up the wording to make it clearer? Palefire 03:50, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

My reading of it is that, despite being called here "double glazing", the pockets of air are in fact open ended, and that the application of the Sun onto the glass causes the air to heat up and so rise to the top of the building, drawing in air (from certain floors, or perhaps just from the ground floor, or perhaps even every one, and so cooling things down a bit.
Not sure if that's right, though.
James F. (talk) 22:31, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You're right, it is confusing, and the mention of household double glazing is irrelevant at best. I'll redo this with a bit more research. User:Waster

Contents

[edit] The building uses energy-saving methods which allow it to use half the power a similar tower would consume

The building uses energy-saving methods which allow it to use half the power a similar tower would consume

This is a great line, but is it true? I doubt it. It seens to be drawn from one sentence a random article linked at the bottom... I haven't removed it, because it's such a great line, but I probably should

I should think its about right. One of the most significant things about the building design is its use of passive air conditioning (the double skin windows discussed in para 2 of The Building) and several other design features for sustainability. You can find more are Sustainable development and 30 St Mary Axe, which includes the statement;
The Building Research Establishment’s (BRE) annual energy consumption guideline for low-energy mixed-mode offices is 175 kWh/sq m. It is anticipated that Swiss Re’s new building will surpass this figure by up to 25 kWh/sq m in its optimal low energy configuration.
The average energy consumption for offices would seem to be around 220 kWh/sq m [1]; the average for skyscrapers may be higher. There is also some further discussion in this sustainability.com article. -- Solipsist 18:27, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Upcoming edits

Hi all, I got this very helpful stuff from User:Laos. I will put most of it into the article in the near future. But if you guys want to do it now, feel free:


Hi,

I worked as an engineer on the design at concept and scheme stage when the project team was very small.

I was planning a few more additions, including some closeup pictures of the construction stage. My feelings will not be hurt if you tidy up/re-organize, and I'll keep an eye on what you do (you seem to be experienced in these matters...)

A techy insight: Most tall buildings are given lateral stabilty either by a core or by an unbraced (no diagonals) perimeter tube or some combination of the two. This normally means that if they're designed to be just strong enough to resist wind load, they are still too flexible from the point of view of occupant comfort. The primary methods for controlling wind excited accelerations are to increase the stiffness, or increase damping (see tuned/active mass dampers). Swiss re's fully triangulated perimeter structure makes the building sufficiently stiff without having to add extra material over that needed to provide the required strength.

Sorry if I messed up a section - I was a bit confused about which edit links hooked up to which sections. It looks like you didn't like the bit about the sight lines.

Perhaps you'd like to summarize what follows:

the planning process was absolutely crucial to how the building ended up looking.

The site was very special in London because it: 1) needed development 2) was not on any of the "sight lines" - planning guidance requires that new buildings do not obstruct or detract from the view of St. Paul's dome when viewed from a number of locations around London: see [2] and [3] 3) had housed the Baltic exchange. I cannot over-emphasize how impressive the interior was before the bomb - this gave the planners extra motivation and leverage.

One of the schemes (with an architect other than Foster's - GMW I think?) involved building a new box building (large floor plates - what the banks want) around a restored exchange. This didn't get any buyers.

At some stage (around the time I got involved), the planners realized that the exchange was unrecoverable, and that they could either (a) live with a derelict site or (b) relax their constraints, and it was indicated that an "architecturally significant" (this is a quote, though who said it escapes me) building would be looked upon favourably. This made the architect's brief much more open, and eliminated the "large, capital efficient box for making money" ideas the client would inevitably have been having.

Another major influence in the project's gestation was Canary Wharf. At the time, the banks and other traditional square mile employers were defecting to Canary Wharf in droves. One reason for this was the availibity of modern large floor plates. The City of London was not approving such buildings, meaning that the firms had to disperse their staff across many sites. The City became aware of the mass defection, and relaxed its opposition to high-rise buildings. Swiss Re's low level plan meets the planning authorities desire to maintain the City of London's traditional "street scape" with relatively narrow streets, without the mass of the tower being too imposing. Like Barclay's City building, you are almost oblivious to the tower's existence in neighbouring streets until you are directly underneath it. Such planning rules/goals are the principal cause of many cities' visual identity - compare central London, Paris, and NY's sky lines and street environments to see this. (As an example, NY's plot ratio and setback rules have had an enormous impact on how it looks.)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Muchosucko"

Thanks to Laos for the goodies.--Muchosucko 22:32, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] More prominent name?

I was trying to find the "real" name of the building (Swiss Re Tower), should this not be in the intro text instead of burried near the end of the text? --Aslate 21:42, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

go for it! --Muchosucko 22:54, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Its not the real name of the building, although it should be clarified since we are using it in the article. 'Swiss Re Tower' was the working title for the building during construction. Swiss Re had planned to occupy the whole building and if they had, that would probably have been its name. Since they now want to rent half of it, it has the more neutral name of '30 St Mary Axe'. -- Solipsist 03:23, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
As noted, 30 St Mary Axe is its real name (see its web page ) I've reworked the intro to accomodate the informal names. Icundell 16:18, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bogus nicknames

I removed the following nicknames. If any of them are genuinely used (rather than plundered from this article by lazy wags) then reputable sources should be cited:

chocolateboy 16:03, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Good call. -- Solipsist 20:41, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Crystal Phallus

I readded the Crystal Phallus nickname, citing http://www.gridskipper.com/travel/london/sightseeing/best-of-the-worst-london-walking-tours-036529.php as a source.

[edit] Slice of pickle

The cross section is like? With the current bldg it's circular, the previous I understand was merely larger. In the UK a pickle is not a gherkin. What to do with this section... Rich Farmbrough 15:26 28 February 2006 (UTC).

The the original (1996) design was radically different and the floorplan resembled the slices of dill pickle you get in McDonalds burgers. The Guardian subs made the leap to gherkin (because it was funnier). Icundell 00:19, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

No, Icundell didn't read the Guardian quote properly. The 'erotic gherkin' refers to St Mary Axe's outline, not the shape of the floorplan of the Millenium Tower. 86.134.72.105 12:42, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Icundell didn't rely on the Guardian quote, he relied on the fact that he was there at the time. Icundell 13:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Style

Does anybody know what kind of style architecture this building would formally be considered? I'm not an architecture expert, but would it be postmodern? Modern? It just seems very unusual and different - I was wondering if it has any kind of categorization. It would probably make a very good addition to the article. Nicholasink 04:00, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I would describe its style as 'futurism'. Wjfox2005

[edit] Street name origin

Perhaps to a Londoner the name of this building sounds normal, but to me, "30 St Mary Axe" is a jumble.

Don't worry old chap we tolerate the jumble of names you use for your streets as well. I believe the expression is a game of two halves. ;-) --mgaved 21:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

First I thought Axe might be a type of road (those crazy Brits...), and the building was named Number + Specific Name + Generic Name, à la One Police Plaza. But of course an axe isn't a type of road. So maybe the building's name is just Number + Specific Name? Which led me to wonder what the full street name was. But googling for a full name yields few results (e.g. 26 hits for "St Mary Axe Street"). So is the road's official and complete name simply "St Mary Axe"?

And regardless of whether it's St Mary Axe Ave or Blvd or whatever: why the hell is the street named St Mary Axe? First, did it used to be St Mary's Axe? And second, why does St Mary have an axe at all? The best solution I could come up with was that "axe" is a bygone form of "axis", which is a concievable generic street type, even though that's a completely unattested usage in the OED. Or maybe it is in fact a completely random name, the result of mutation of an archaic name, like The Shambles from Fleshammels?

Any Londoners or otherwise familiar people care to enlighten me on all this? It's really bothering me for some reason.--Severinus 20:14, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Well I can tell you that the street name is just "St Mary Axe" without any Street, Road, Lane, Avenue, Walk or any other type of street suffix that you can think of. And yes it does sound a bit strange, but it is in one of the older sections of London which contains quite a few odd little streets so it is the sort of historic curiosity that we come to expect.
Acording to this webpage from LondonTourist, the origin of the name comes from the church there, which is also called "St Mary Axe".
Of course this just begs the question of why the church is called "St Mary Axe". I guess the "St Mary" part isn't particularly surprising, but the "Axe" needs a little more explaining. Fortunately this extract from British History Online looks like it has a fairly authoratative answer. They say that records around the 12th-14th century(?) show the name as variously
  • "St. Mary apud Ax"
  • "St. Mary de Ax"
  • "St. Mary atte Axe"
  • "St. Mary atte Naxe"
and even "Modo Mari Ax" which all seem to be Old English versions of "St Mary at the Axe" and the explanation of the "at the Axe" part is that the original dedication of the church was
"St. Mary the Virgin, St. Ursula and the Eleven thousand Virgins", the name "Axe" being added because the church boasted possession, as a relic, of one of the three axes with which the Virgins were executed.
Glad you asked :) -- Solipsist 00:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, thank you for the quick & thorough answer! Interesting stuff. -- Severinus 03:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I should also have provided a link to St. Ursula for those, like myself, who are unfamiliar with the story. Although seeing as how her story is now considered fiction, the existence of an Axe relic seem pretty unlikely too. -- Solipsist 15:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
I had this question too, why such a weird name? So I added it in the intro. --AW (talk) 21:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] BBC London News poll

...on ugliest building

Only 512 people voted in this poll, so it's hardly representative (see the cited source).

[edit] Skyscraper Square

Has anyone else actually heard of this term applied to the east end of the Square Mile? Its a new one to me, and there appears to be zero Google hits. -- Solipsist 22:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Fully agree, and I'll nominate that article for deletion. -- H005 23:31, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Billions

Listing large numbers such as the recent sale price as $1.2bn is ineffective because some British and American readers understand billions as different amounts. Given the locational nature of this article and the international nature of the web this should not be done.

Also simply stating $1.2bn is useless, which dollar currency does the author you mean? Canadian, American, Australian? Using what exchange rate? Also the suffix Bn is probably less common than simply B or b or even G, although some people interpret G to mean "grand" which tends to mean 1,000. Which is why I've changed the sale price to reflect the whole number using the exchange rate of 1.0 GBP = 1.95916 USD

GoClick 01:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Whilst in the 1950's perhaps it was common to make a distinction between the british billion (a million million) and the US billion (a thousand million) by the time of my parent's generation and certainly by mine (born 70s-80s) divergance has occured - The Chancellor of the exchequer himself, when addressing parliament during his budget speech will refer to US billions - I'm fine with 1 USD (US dollar - or whatever is the correct way of abbreviating it). --Joopercoopers 12:31, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Happy with US billions as most people in the UK have moved over to that. My British bias is that the currency value should be described in UK Sterling first with dollars in brackets second, unless there is a specific WP policy of referring to all article values in US currency. Seems only polite. --mgaved 21:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps a read of the lead here will help. --Joopercoopers 12:34, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
I think you mean 'convergence'. I agree that AFAIK the 'British billion' has not been in use since the 1970s. (Though I do recall the distinction being sometimes made during my childhood in the 1970s.)Ben Finn 15:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bogus nicknames

I've removed another bogus-sounding nickname, 'Foster's Cock'. I have only ever heard it referred to as the Gherkin. Ben Finn 15:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Please reinstate my edit - the Gherkin is consistently referred to as 'Fosters Cock' in the fortnightly magazine 'Private Eye', which includes a column on architecture and heritage. I also work in the building, and have heard fellow workers both from my own company and several others refer to the building with this term.

[edit] GA On hold

There are very large sections it the article without citations in the article some of which are in the "The planning process" section. I would recommend that there atleastr be one citation for every paragraph which there is possible. Tarret 13:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Failed GA

This article has failed the GA noms due to the above complaints, and as they don't seem to have been attempted to be addressed. If you feel that this review was in error feel free to take it to WP:GA/R. Tarret 17:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Erotic gherkin

It is clear from the Guardian source cited that the 'erotic gherkin' refers to the present building, not the proposed and unbuilt Millenium Tower. The gherkin-shaped outline of the building is the reason for its nickname, not the 'slice of pickle-like' floor plan of the Millenium Tower. I have corrected this article and that of the Millenium Tower. 86.134.72.105 12:21, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

And I have corrected them back, relying in the fact that I know what I am talking about. Icundell 13:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

You may well know what you are talking about, but you haven't cited a source that shows that the Guardian's 1996 reference referred to the floor plan as opposed to the outline of the building. I was correct, according to Wikipedia poliy, to change the text. You were incoreect in reverting it back, citing your superior knowledge. That just won't cut it here, buddy. Come up with some evidence. 86.136.194.163 15:52, 1 August 2007 (UTC)