Republic is an office campus in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, situated in the

London Borough of Tower Hamlets The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London boroughs, London borough covering much of the traditional East End of London, East End. It was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former Metropolitan boroughs of the County of London, metropol ...

, near

Canary Wharf Canary Wharf is an area of London, England, located near the Isle of Dogs in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Canary Wharf is defined by the Greater London Authority as being part of London's central business district, alongside Central Lo ...

and

Canning Town Canning Town is a district in the London Borough of Newham, East London. The district is located to the north of the Royal Victoria Dock, and has been described as the "Child of the Victoria Docks" as the timing and nature of its urbanisation ...

. It sits on the historic site of the

East India Docks The East India Docks were a group of docks in Blackwall, east London, north-east of the Isle of Dogs. Today only the entrance basin and listed perimeter wall remain visible. History Early history Following the successful creation of the We ...

and is currently occupied as a multi-use office campus as well as being the location of the

Tower Hamlets London Borough Council Tower Hamlets London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in Greater London, England. The council is unusual in that its executive function is controlled by a directly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, curr ...

History

London Borough of Tower Hamlets - East India Dock Boundary Wall - 20220904170727

The land occupied by Republic was historically used as the Import Dock of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

. Following the dock's closure in 1967, the site was redeveloped in the 1990s as an office campus providing disaster recovery space for businesses at

. Following the site's acquisition by

LaSalle Investment Management LaSalle Investment Management ("LaSalle") is a real estate investment management firm. It is an independent subsidiary of Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), a real estate financial and professional services company. LaSalle manages capital for institut ...

in 2016, a large-scale re-branding effort was put in place to position the site as a cultural and business hub for East London. Recognition that businesses were increasingly being "priced-out" of the City of London and tech-capital Shoreditch motivated the site's transformation into an affordable workplace. Signs of the historic past of the area remain, including the original boundary wall to the Import Dock and the naming of offices as The Import and Export buildings.

Architecture

The buildings were originally constructed in the

postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

style in the 1990s and the shells of these buildings still exist. Whilst plans for the demolition of the buildings and their replacement by residential accommodation were developed by architects 3D Reid in 2015, these were not implemented by developers Trilogy Real Estate who favoured the re-positioning of the site as a "Live, Work, Play" environment. Major renovation works, led by architects Studio RHE, began in 2016 in an attempt to modernise the campus. Extensive landscaping was instigated along existing waterways and plans submitted to construct Europe's longest open-air swimming pool. Internal renovations of the buildings focused on the remodelling of the existing atrium cores with the extensive use of Cross-laminated timber. British artist Scott King designed the building's facade, referencing the socialist

Project Cybersyn Project Cybersyn was a Chilean project from 1971 to 1973 during the presidency of Salvador Allende aimed at constructing a distributed decision support system to aid in the management of the national economy. The project consisted of four modul ...

and pictorial depictions of Utopia.

Notable Tenants

Republic is home to a number of organisations in both the private and public sectors - These include:

Deliveroo Deliveroo is a British online food delivery company founded by Will Shu and Greg Orlowski in 2013 in London, England. It operates in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait ...

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public limited company, plc () is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Telephone company, telecommunications company. Its registered office and Headquarters, global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It ...

, Co-working spac
The Trampery
and

Lebara Lebara Group is a telecommunications company providing services using the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) business model in the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Switzerland and Australia. Le ...

Transport

The campus is served by the

East India DLR station East India is a station on Docklands Light Railway (DLR) in Leamouth, east London. It takes its name from the nearby former East India Docks of the Port of London, where ships trading with the Indian subcontinent used to dock. It is on the Beck ...

by a dedicated entrance providing access to the Transport for London network. Nearby

Canary Wharf railway station Canary Wharf is an Elizabeth line station in Canary Wharf in East London, England. The station forms an artificial island in the West India Docks (North Dock). The five upper levels of the station are a mixed-use development known as Crossrai ...

will facilitate connections to the wider rail network via the

Elizabeth line The Elizabeth line is a high-frequency hybrid Urban rail, urban–suburban rail service in London and its suburbs. It runs services on dedicated infrastructure in central London from the Great Western Main Line west of London Paddington statio ...

London Buses London Buses is the subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL) that manages most bus services in London, England. It was formed following the Greater London Authority Act 1999 that transferred control of London Regional Transport (LRT) bus se ...

routes D3,

108 108 may refer to: * 108 (number) * AD 108, a year * 108 BC, a year * 108 (artist) (born 1978), Italian street artist * 108 (band), an American hardcore band * 108 (emergency telephone number), an emergency telephone number in several states in Ind ...

, 115, N15, N550 and N551 all stop adjacent to the site. Additionally, the site is flanked to the south by the A261 road and to the west by the

A102 road A1, A-1, A01 or A.1. may refer to: Education * A1, the Basic Language Certificate of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages * Language A1, the former name for "Language A: literature", one of the IB Group 1 subjects * A1, a ...

providing access to the South of London via the

Blackwall Tunnel The Blackwall Tunnel is a pair of road tunnels underneath the River Thames in east London, England, linking the London Borough of Tower Hamlets with the Royal Borough of Greenwich, and part of the A102 road. The northern portal lies just south ...

References

{{reflist Business parks of England Postmodern architecture in the United Kingdom Office buildings in London Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets