TIDE Bankside

Location: London

Brick Manufacturer: Wienerberger Limited

Brick Name: Smeed Dean London Stock

Architect: Squire & Partners

Brickwork Contractors: Thorp Precast

TIDE Bankside is a Net Zero embodied and operational carbon workspace development, taking its place as a key player in the ongoing renewal of London’s Bankside. A stone’s throw from the Tate Modern, the Globe Theatre, and the Thames riverbanks, the area’s rich cultural and material heritage has informed the distinctive façade design, which marries organic forms and traditional London building stock with cutting-edge technology.
Meeting the highest environmental standards, TIDE Bankside offers 147,500 sq ft of commercial and affordable workspaces, intelligently designed to maximise natural ventilation and reduce energy consumption. Each floor features landscaped terraces to provide outdoor working environments, as well as an extensive shared roof garden contributing to the local biodiversity. Active lifestyles are supported with 284 cycle spaces, electric bike charging stations, and end-of-journey facilities, including a dedicated bike maintenance area.

Inspired by its proximity to the Thames’ riverbanks, the façade takes reference from the natural erosion patterns of coastal formations, telling the story of a material shaped by ‘a thousand tides’. The building evokes the image of a towering sea stack – hollowed out over centuries by the force of saltwater to leave elegant arboresque columns. Creating a striking vertical rhythm, these columns extend down from the rooftop, like water flowing over a cliff edge, frozen in time.

In place of where was once rock, robust bronze panels are placed, stepping back from the building’s perimeter. Like tree roots reaching out to seek water, the columns extend into the public realm, creating a shaded colonnade for pedestrians to shelter from the rain. The corner – where Park and Emerson Street meet – is marked by a striking column that acts as a visual landmark to the building’s entrance. Enhancements to public realm also include the expansion of an existing unloved courtyard across the street.

To create the façade’s organic form, pioneering water-jet cutting technologies were developed in collaboration with architectural precast cladding experts Thorp Precast. Although the desired sculptural forms could be achieved with precast concrete; there were no precedents of the applying the same technique to brick. The waterjet cutting machine mimics the natural erosion process, applying high-pressure steam to shape materials with precision. This method of shaping the bricks produced zero waste, as both halves were used in the columns. The team also selected high-strength ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS) for the reinforced concrete frame, which reduces embodied carbon by 50% compared to standard concrete mixes.

Once the bricks had been sculpted, the challenge became figuring out how to arrange each brick on the columns – some of which span two floors and are nearly 8 metres tall. 

TIDE Bankside is a resilient, flexible structure with a 180-year lifespan. Achieving BREEAM Outstanding, the building’s low operational energy and durable concrete frame ensures it can evolve with changing demands.

With its blend of thoughtful design, pioneering technology, and environmental standards, TIDE Bankside stands as a lasting symbol of the area's transformation – a modern workspace shaped by the forces of nature, rooted in history, and built for the future.