The City of London Corporation has launched asearch for a design team to develop and deliver plans for a major renewal of the Barbican Centre.

The Barbican Renewal project, first announced in February, puts culture front-and-centre of the City’s recovery from the pandemic.

The Barbican is one of London’s most ambitious and unique architectural achievements; it is a global icon of brutalist architecture, renowned for its scale of ambition and consistency of design.

Opened by HM The Queen in 1982, the Barbican is approaching its 40th birthday, and there is the opportunity to mark this milestone with a vision that enables the building to meet the needs of 21st century artists, audiences and communities.

Applications are invited from multi-disciplinary teams who have the skills, experience and ambition to deliver a complex and detailed project whilst respecting its Grade-II listing status.

The City Corporation - the founder and principal funder of the Barbican – is seeking submissions from practices working together: architects, engineers, sustainability and heritage consultants and others, who can embed equality, diversity and inclusion into their creative vision.

The initial brief allows for the Barbican Centre to be considered in its entirety – from upgrading venues and transforming underused areas into new flexible spaces, to improving the welcome, navigating and wayfinding. Embedding digital technology across the building to enable the Barbican to connect with a global audience is also a major focus.

The Renewal Project will also tackle a critical need to make major improvements to the building’s environmental performance. Under its Climate Action Strategy, the City Corporation commits to achieving net zero carbon status for its own operations by 2027 and its investment and supply chain by 2040.

The budget for the project is subject to approval by the City Corporation, and the successful design team will be asked to develop a range of options for the project that would be deliverable at different budget levels.

For the purpose of the design team selection process, interested bidders are being asked to propose a number of design options that would be deliverable within a construction cost budget of £50m to £150m.