The centre of Reading, in the heart of the beating central commuter square, Thames Tower announces itself, a vibrant, symmetrical, terracotta giant.  Taking Louis Sullivan’s Guaranty Building in Buffalo, New York – one of the world’s first skyscrapers – as inspiration, the pioneering refurbishment has established a new forward-thinking identity for the community of Reading.

With a five-storey steel framed extension, an enlarged footprint on each floor and a striking re-cladding in terracotta, the red ochre hue of which takes cues from the surrounding Victorian brick buildings, the tower is certainly turning heads.