One Undershaft: High anxiety over London’s tallest skyscraper

Architects have altered the design of the UK’s new (joint) tallest skyscraper – again. Plans for One Undershaft, in the City of London, have been overhauled completely a number of times since they were first drawn up in 2015. The current design is a pedestrian three-tiered structure not bold enough to be worthy of a nickname like its neighbours the Cheesegrater, the Walkie-Talkie and the Gherkin. The latest changes aren’t huge but they highlight the difficulty of pleasing everyone when it comes to London’s skyline, and they follow Historic England’s criticism of the previous design as a “serious missed opportunity”. The skyscraper will be as tall as The Shard (309.64m) south of the river – a height capped by airport flight-paths over central London. Other considerations include the protected sight-lines of historic buildings and the complexities of what lies underneath an ancient city. Add these to financial, political and planning hurdles, and it becomes harder to break ground; harder still to be ground-breaking.