Bloomberg London

Foster + Partners specified British Derbyshire sandstone across Bloomberg's City of London headquarters, pairing it with cast bronze fins to create the largest stone-clad commercial building in the city in a generation. The sandstone was chosen for its warmth against the surrounding Portland stone context and for its provenance.

The project is a practical reference for British specifiers: a home-quarried stone, specified at scale, detailed with deep reveals and expressed joints, meeting City planning expectations for a contextual but contemporary facade.

British sandstones vary widely in colour, bedding and durability. Specifying sandstone successfully depends on matching the quarry's bed to the exposure and loading of the application.