Morris+Company to add ‘hanging garden’ balconies to Paddington office building

Morris+Company has revealed plans to freshen up a Paddington office block – and provide shading –by attaching a ‘cascade of hanging gardens’ to its facadeThe scheme, approved by Westminster Council last month, involves attaching a set of lightweight steel balconies to the existing Sidell Gibson-designed office block on Sheldon Square in Paddington Central.The red-coloured balcony structure, which will be fabricated off-site, will provide 542m2 of external terrace space and 76m2 of planting over nine levels. It will hang on large cantilever beams projecting from the existing roof structure.The retrofit scheme for developer British Land aims to connect the 11-storey building to a new amphitheatre space below, provide outside space for office workers and give a new look to the ‘dated’ 2002 building.According to documents sent to Westminster council, the existing building is ‘overglazed’, meaning occupiers rely heavily on window blinds to block out the sun.The hanging balconies have been designed to provide shading and improve operational energy performance as well as providing ‘biophilia’ – a connection with nature – for the building’s occupiers.Morris+Company will work with landscape architect Gillespies on the planting, planned as ‘a balance of herbaceous species and low growing, mound-forming shrubs in naturalistic groupings’.The project is set to start on site this autumn and complete in 2022.