Moon walk: with artist Simon Patterson, Arup Associates lead us through the streets of London.

It is rare to be given the opportunity to design a street. Particularly a new street, in the heart of the City of London; an area richly steeped in history, and haphazardly defined by a unique dense mediaeval web of streets. Such an opportunity, however, was given--or rather taken--by architects Arup Associates and artist Simon Patterson during the development of two new commercial office buildings for British Land.

While significant effort focused on the design of two new buildings that provide over 120 000sqm of lettable office space and incorporate a pioneering natural ventilation strategy, the consideration of a relatively small new urban space has made a surprising and disproportionate contribution to the successful resolution of the whole. While the two new buildings may on first impression appear to be relatively conventional commercial developments, closer inspection of their form and on-foot exploration of the 2.5-acre site, reveals higher civic aspirations. Despite the mass and commercially driven super scale, Arup Associates' manipulation of space gives back as much as the buildings' perceived bulk takes away; not only with the dramatic staggered central atrium, which supports the complex's environmental operation and creates a semi-private north-south route through the two buildings, but also more subtly through the creation of a narrow east-west alleyway: London's newest street. Going against the tendency that maximizes density and landlocks sites, the new route gives its neighbouring buildings space to breathe and true permeability. Slicing its way across the deep urban block, the narrow lane--uninspiringly christened Plantation Lane--links the more deliciously named Rood and Mincing lanes at either end. It also opens up new views to Wren's fine seventeenth-century St Margaret Pattens Church; a modest, almost incidental intervention that unquestioningly enriches this place's public realm.

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A slight conflict, however, arises when we consider the treatment of the new spaces, as 'public art' enters centre stage. While the first moves of this strategy should be highly praised, the application of art seems slightly overworked. Despite challenging notions of public art by attempting to make place-art rather than object-art, the most discernible object--the screen--is unquestionably the project's weakest link, conceptually and tectonically. While the lunar super-graphic is bold, its immediate power is subverted by a modular panel system; a system that recalls a clip-together touring exhibition stand made from standardized components, more than the qualities of an enduring work of public art. As the graphic turns the blunt corner, creating three or four avoidable and distracting details, you wonder if more finesse was required; more art than architect-tonics. While serving its practical purpose, screening the unsightly service yard and rear elevation of 51 Eastcheap, it is difficult to understand the object's place in the overall composition, without that is being explicitly told of the artist's conceptual leap; a leap between earth and cosmos, between everyday and eternity, and between ground embedded text which recalls the constant evolution of local history set against the distant unchanging view of the moon above. (Which oddly then begins to constantly change colour!) Less here, would certainly have given more. Perhaps when seen alongside London's other recent artist/architect collaboration between Foster and Caro, lessons begin to emerge about how far collaboration can be taken when disciplines merge to focus on an individual component.

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Arup Associates, however, have done very well. They know this site well--having worked on this development for more than 20 years--and their contribution to the network of public and semi-private spaces should be applauded. They have certainly refined their ideas and have created a delightful new place, simplifying earlier propositions to cover the space with a barrel-vaulted roof. The refinement however should have been taken further. With the hard work done--having successfully shaped a new space with subtle and complex edge conditions, unified by a truly exquisite new ground plane--it is disappointing that the screen, while attempting to be special, is far from out of this world.

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