Bank of England Building Reconstruction London CGI, Visuals, John Soane Architecture

Bank of England Digital Reconstruction

Threadneedle Street Building CGIs, City of London, England, UK – design by architect John Soane

26 Oct 2016

Bank of England Building Digital Reconstruction

HP unveils digital reconstruction of London’s lost masterpiece, Soane’s Bank of England

HP reveals the results of a crowdsourced project to resurrect one of architecture’s greatest losses

The results of an exciting project to Website: digitally reconstruct Soane’s Bank of England unveiled. Destroyed in the 1920s, Soane’s Bank of England is considered one of modern architecture’s greatest losses.

image : Andrii Rodych, 3DVisDesign, Ukraine

The crowdsourced project saw HP work with partners including NVIDIA and Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA) to make it possible to experience Soane’s Bank of England in its original glory. At today’s event, held at The Banking Hall in the City of London, attendees explored the building in detail through virtual reality renderings of the architectural masterpiece.

HP was able to harness expertise from all over the world, inviting architects, rendering specialists and architecture enthusiasts to help with the reconstruction. Competition entrants used a set of Autodesk Revit models, created through a crowdsourcing initiative and curated by RAMSA, to create their own renderings of Soane’s Bank of England.

image : Hoare Lea LLP, United Kingdom

Six winners were selected from the following categories:

• People’s Choice Overall
• Best Image Submission
• Best Film/Animation Submission
• Best Real-Time Submission
• Best GPU-based Submission
• Historical Accuracy

Soane’s Bank of England was an architecturally spectacular construction and the life’s work of famous British architect, Sir John Soane. Soane’s style and use of light, demonstrated in his designs for the bank, made an important impact on the course of commercial architecture. The bank’s destruction in the1920s is seen as a great loss in the history of the industry.

“The destruction of Soane’s Bank of England was such a tragedy for architecture; resurrecting it is a great way to showcase what can be achieved with today’s technology,” said Sean Young, Worldwide Segment Manager, Product Development & AEC at HP. “At HP, we’ve brought together a number of market leading partners including NVIDIA, Autodesk, CGarchitect and Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA), who all provided expertise to help make this happen.”

image : Andrii Rodych, 3DVisDesign, Ukraine

“The demolition of Soane’s Bank of England was one of the great architectural crimes of the twentieth century, and recapturing what it was like to walk through its spaces has become a persistent dream for me and many others,” said Graham S. Wyatt, Partner at Robert A.M. Stern Architects, who first proposed the idea for what became Project Soane. “The quality of the Project Soane renderings is inspirational, and the animations and virtual reality models provide the ‘you-are-there’ experience that I had dared to hope was possible. I’m confident Sir John Soane would have been impressed.”

image : Lucia Frascerra, DBOX, Italy

Melissa DelVecchio, also a Partner at Robert A.M. Stern Architects, added, “Since the demolition of Soane’s Bank of England, generations of architects have experienced Soane’s masterpiece only through photographs and the Sir John Soane’s Museum’s collection of drawings. It was our hope that Project Soane would put these disconnected puzzle pieces back together and capture the imagination and attention of practicing architects and scholars worldwide. And that’s exactly what it did.”

image : Hoare Lea LLP, United Kingdom

“We were delighted to collaborate on this historic project,” said Jason Southern, NVIDIA Leader for Professional Visualisation in EMEA. “The incredible detail and artistry achieved by the winning entries really showcases the power that our Quadro professional graphics platform brings to design workflows. The ability to virtually experience a masterpiece that was destroyed almost 100 years ago with such realism is truly breath-taking.”

The successful six entrants won a share of almost $30,000 of great prizes, including a fully-loaded HP Z840 Workstation with NVIDIA Quadro M6000 professional graphics, a HP DesignJet T520 Printer 36’’, HP ZBook 15 and HP Z27s UHD Display.

image : Andrii Rodych, 3DVisDesign, Ukraine

Built for high-end computing and visualisation, the HP Z840 delivers outstanding performance in a tool-less chassis to facilitate upgrades. The HP Z840 is capable of supporting two next generation Intel® Xeon® processors for up to 44 total processor cores in one system for the most demanding design projects.

Designed to fit office and work needs, the space-saving HP DesignJet Printer enables a range of different applications and provides accurate, quality prints with Original HP inks and 2400 dpi.

Creativity knows no limits with HP’s thin and light HP ZBook 15, the world’s best-selling mobile workstation. Now in its third generation, this powerful performer offers an exciting blend of mobility and robust configurability. The HP Z27s UHD Display delivers an extra-large screen with UHD/4K presentation and flexible connectivity and comfort features.

All the award-winning, and honourable mention, images and videos can be viewed here.

Bank of England Digital Reconstruction Winners

Bank of England Building Digital Reconstruction Winning Entries

• People’s Choice Overall; Andrii Rodych, 3DVisDesign, Ukraine

• Best Image Submission; Manuel Rearte Studios, Manuel Rearte, Andre Simapranata, Nejc Kilar, Matej Ovsenek, Natalija Jagarinec, United States

• Best Film/Animation Submission; Rostislav Nikolaev, archirost, Russian Federation

• Best Real-Time Submission; Richard Stevenson, Freelance, South Africa

• Best GPU-based Submission; Andrii Rodych, 3DVisDesign, Ukraine

• Historical Accuracy; Gianluca Zito, Australia

About HP Inc.
HP Inc. creates technology that makes life better for everyone, everywhere. Through our portfolio of printers, PCs, mobile devices, solutions, and services, we engineer experiences that amaze. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com

Bank of England Building

Bank of England 325th Anniversary Exhibition

11 Jul 2013

Bank of England Building

New free app offers a virtual tour behind the scenes at Threadneedle Street, presenting previously unseen panoramic views and revealing its architectural treasures, history and working rooms

Bank of England Building Tour

The Bank of England Virtual Tour invites people to tour the Threadneedle Street building through a series of captivating and previously unseen 360° panoramic images, including the very rarely-viewed gold vaults deep within the building.

New app Bank of England Gold Vault:

photo © Bank of England

The tour begins with a 3D model of the building, which can be rotated to select a series of individual rooms – a captivating combination of historic parlours and working rooms – and unlock the facts and high-resolution images within.