London Bridge Place

The News Building

Material used

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Verde Marina

Material type Granite
Areas Level 13 & 14 roof terrace floors
Project completion year 2013
Client Sellar Property Group
Architect Renzo Piano Building Workshop
in collaboration with Adamson Associates

About

The News Building, also known as, ‘Baby Shard’ has been one of the most prominent natural stone projects. InOpera Group supplied and manufactured Verde Marina (Kuppam Green) granite flooring for the building’s roof terraces on levels 13 and 14.

The News Building is a 17-storey office block, located beside London Bridge Station, on the south bank of the River Thames. It houses all of News UK’s London operations, including The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, TalkRADIO and HarperCollins.

The building is part of the Shard Quarter development and is adjacent to the London Bridge Tower, also known as ‘Shard’. Both of the buildings were designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano Building Workshop in collaboration with Adamson Associates (Toronto, London).

Despite the proximity of the two buildings and some common architectural features, London Bridge Place has its character and identity. The office building has large, south-facing landscaped roof terraces, as well as naturally ventilated winter gardens.
The surface of the granite flooring has a flamed finish, which helps to achieve very high slip-resistance for outdoor usage. The property’s tested by the UK Pendulum Test BS7976 and the European Ramp Test DIN51130 / 51097.

Granite is a very durable, hard crystalised rock, consisting mainly of quartz and other natural minerals. Our granite range is extracted in blocks of 3 – 16 ton and cut into large-scale slabs.
Irregularities occur in the surface pattern and texture of the slabs, as in any natural material. However, to meet the standards for commercial projects of this scale, every slab has been hand-selected to eliminate the inconsistency. Specifically for this purpose, we’ve invited the architects, installers and contractors to our quarry in Northern Italy.
After the selection, each surface piece, including the flooring, cladding and ramp, has been cut-to-size according to the designer’s drawings.

Remarkable project delivery has been a result of this meticulous process and collaboration.