The proposed 382-room Citicape House hotel would include a rooftop gallery and a wildflower meadow on top of the 12-storey building.
A stone’s throw from St Paul’s Cathedral, the 55 metre tall (180ft) building would include a green wall featuring 40,000 sq ft of plants, intended to increase biodiversity in the area and capture pollution. Architecture firm Sheppard Robson says it is projected that the completed wall would capture more than eight tonnes of carbon annually and produce six tonnes of oxygen.
Dan Burr, a partner at Sheppard Robson, said: “Rather than having an isolated patch of greenery, we felt that an immersive and integrated approach would have the biggest impact on the local environmental conditions and make a better and more liveable city, as well as articulating a clear architectural statement.”
A small park is planned to draw visitors into the public lobby with a glass sculpture, stone plinths for seating and polished stone fountains.
Lifts lead to the 10th-floor public viewing gallery, where a path snakes around the edge of the building, taking in a staircase, trees and window seating. The five-star hotel will also feature 40,000 sq ft of workspace, a sky-bar on the 10th floor, meeting and events space, a spa and ground-level restaurant and co-working spaces.
Planning permission for a 246-room hotel and an office building at the site in Holborn Viaduct lapsed in June.
The disused Sixties office building there has been vacant for eight years and its demolition has been agreed.
If approved, the hotel development could be completed in 2024. The plans were submitted to the City of London Corporation at the end of September.
The planned hotel is part of Dominvs Group’s portfolio, which includes the Dixon Hotel in Tower Bridge.
Living walls are self-sufficient vertical gardens attached to a building. Roots feed into a support fastened to the building’s wall, containing soil and a watering system. The idea for living green walls was first patented in 1938 but the concept’s debut came in 1986 at a science museum in Paris. Europe’s largest is thought to be the 11,055 sq ft surface at National Grid’s HQ in Warwick.
