City Hall, in the London Borough of Newham in east

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, is the headquarters of the

Greater London Authority The Greater London Authority (GLA), colloquially known by the Metonymy, metonym City Hall, is the Devolution in the United Kingdom, devolved Regions of England, regional governance body of Greater London, England. It consists of two political ...

(GLA), the regional government for

Greater London Greater London is an administrative area in England, coterminous with the London region, containing most of the continuous urban area of London. It contains 33 local government districts: the 32 London boroughs, which form a Ceremonial count ...

. It replaced the previous City Hall, in Southwark in 2022. The building opened in 2012 and was previously an exhibition centre for sustainable architecture, known as The Crystal. Built and opened by Siemens, it was the first building in the world to reach the highest sustainability award level (see LEED and BREEAM). It was bought by the GLA in 2019 for the docklands redevelopment project. The building is situated next to the redeveloped Royal Victoria Dock in Canning Town. The northern terminus of the

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, and Royal Victoria station, the Docklands Light Railway and Custom House railway station on the Elizabeth line are within walking distance. It is close to London City Airport.

History

Exhibition and conference centre

The Crystal was built as a key part of the Green Enterprise District policy of the London Development Agency. The building was designed by Perkins+Will (fit-out, design leader) and Wilkinson Eyre Architects (shell and core), with Arup Group who were the building and civil engineers, and Townshend Landscape Architects who designed the public realm. Event Communications were the exhibition designers, responsible for the interpretive planning, exhibition design and creative direction, graphic design, media direction and construction management for the exhibition spaces. The building was the first to achieve the highest sustainable building accolades, platinum and outstanding respectively, from the world's two leading accreditation bodies, LEED and BREEAM. When it opened, the Crystal contained a permanent exhibition about sustainable development, and was owned and operated by Siemens. In 2016, Siemens sold the building to the GLA, who acquired it to use as a base for the

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's £3.5bn project to regenerate the Royal Docks. After Siemens vacated the building in 2019, it was used by the Royal Docks regeneration team but large parts of the building remained empty.

City Hall

In June 2020, the Mayor of London

Sadiq Khan Sir Sadiq Aman Khan (, ; born 8 October 1970) is a British politician serving as Mayor of London since 2016. He was previously Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting (UK Parliament constituency), Tooting ...

announced that he was consulting on relocating the headquarters of the GLA from City Hall in Southwark to The Crystal in order to save £55 million for the GLA over the course of five years. The decision was confirmed on 3 November 2020; Newham Borough Council gave permission for a change of use for the building in December 2020. The move was completed in the third week of January 2022, delayed from the previous planned opening date in December 2021. The building was renamed "City Hall" in December 2021.

Architecture

The entire site is in size and the surrounding landscape was designed to be a sustainable urban landscape to help encourage a shift in the social ideology, making 'sustainability' more attractive and allowing people to participate in social activities within the site, which includes local food programmes and community gardens to help foster this principle. The building contains a number of sustainable technologies, including the building management system and KNX infrastructure. The building control devices, such as lighting, windows, blinds and heating, are connected using the KNX protocol. The building has over 2,500 KNX connected devices.

Gallery

File:The crystal (27265775033).jpg, Close up of the building File:Emirates Air Line, London 01-07-2012 (7551145410).jpg, Aerial view File:Emirates Air Line cable car.jpg, View from the

File:London MMB «X6 The Crystal.jpg, Glass panels

References

External links

The CrystalCrystal Clear – The Technology Inside One of the World's Greenest BuildingsCase Study: The First LEED Platinum & BREEAM Outstanding Building
{{LB Newham 2012 establishments in England Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Newham Exhibition and conference centres in London Silvertown

Greater London Authority