REFURBISHMENT
ROLE MODEL FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Central St Giles is the first UK project by Italian architect Renzo Piano. It is a step change development, notable for its iconic citrus façades, part of former mayor Ken Livingstone’s ‘London Plan’ and at the east end of the UK’s busiest shopping street, Oxford Street.
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former Ministry of Defence building near Tottenham Court Road and New Oxford Street, London has undergone a complete transformation to become an exemplar for sustainable and holistic development. Designed by Renzo Piano, the 400,000 sq ft development named Central St Giles is recognisable for its multi- coloured citrus façades. What was once an inaccessible building is now a mixed- use scheme with impressive sustainability credentials, giving its developers a wealth of information and key findings. Home to companies such as
WPP, Google and NBCUniversal, the development features nine retail units on ground level with restaurants including Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Italian, Peyton & Byrne and Zizzi. In a separate building, there are 109 apartments, offering a mix of private and social housing. The building’s sustainability credentials include multi-coloured façades, covered in 134,000 glazed tiles in shades of green, orange, lime and yellow, designed to offer an efficient thermal façade.
Central St Giles, which was completed in 2010 and achieved BREEAM ‘Excellent’, is a development by Legal & General Property and the Mitsubishi Estate Co. “Legal & General previously owned the land but leased it to the MoD on a lease that was due to run until 2011,” explains Simon Wilkes, Head of Business Space Development, Legal & General. “The MoD wanted to reduce its property footprint and so L&GP went through planning in 2005/06 and obtained vacant possession by negotiation early to bring forward the scheme. At planning stage, the land was owned by L&G. Once planning was approved, we looked for a partner and Mitsubishi Estates came in.”
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The planning stipulation strictly put sustainability measures at the forefront of design, which led L&G Property to employ engineers Arup and have the site managed by Broadgate Estates.
There is a wealth of different
sustainability features in place including a sophisticated recycling provision. However, according to Simon Wilkes, there is too much waste going to landfill at present, leading him to commission a post- occupancy survey from Arup that is due in June next year. This is looking at the areas of energy consumption, water consumption and current recycling rates.
“Central St Giles is a very sophisticated building with over 400 electricity meters,” says Wilkes. “Now that the two buildings are almost completely occupied, it is the right time to be reporting on how well the scheme is performing, and where we can make sustainability improvements. “For example, one of our tenants made extra electricity provisions but we are still not using the base building allowance,” continues Wilkes. “The Arup report will be commenting on energy performance and how and where we can improve. There is an Environmental Working Group, chaired by Broadgate Estates, which involves every tenant and feeds into their CSR and sustainability agendas. They meet formally once a quarter and, informally, monthly. All the data due back will inform future decision-making.” Other sustainability features include: four levels of landscaped green and brown roofs (some accessible to tenants); 60 per cent collection and reuse of rainwater – for irrigation and toilet flushing; 80 per cent of the heating from biomass boilers – one of the first city centre projects with a site-
PUBLIC SECTOR SUSTAINABILITY • VOLUME 4 ISSUE 2
wide biomass heating system; heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) by Climaveneta, one of the foremost suppliers of HVAC systems in terms of sustainability; 100 per cent of the cooling tower water going into toilet flushing (grey water); 90 per cent of demolition materials recycled, and 15 per cent recycled materials used in construction. As a project, the building has provided fascinating insights into how sustainability plays a key part in design. “There is a wealth of information from the building now,” says Wilkes. “With the Arup report, we want to know whether the original specification was right and make sure we act on the findings.” Most notably, the Climaveneta chillers form an integral part of the energy provision as Steven Shepherd, Managing Director, Climaveneta UK Group explains: “We have supplied Central St Giles with three high-efficiency water-cooled chillers, providing over 1800kW cooling capacity. The capability complies with the consultant’s design intent and also ensures accelerated return on initial investment, which was also a key stipulation.” The sustainability features on the whole have helped the developer attract the sort of tenants they sought as David McAllister, Senior Engineer, Arup, comments: “The building was a speculative office development so the developer’s main interest was in achieving a good quality building that would meet the expectations of the type of tenant they wanted to attract, at good value. Quality and reliability were important and low energy was a consideration for Part L, BREEAM and for marketing reasons, as well as low energy being the right thing to do.”
www.rpbw.com www.sustainworldwide.com
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