16 1 TRITON SQUARE, LONDON


© DBOX for Arup


The project reused around 3,300 m2


of limestone,


35,000 tonnes of concrete and nearly 1,900 tonnes of steel


LendLease took a circular economy approach from the outset, sharing a “genuine commitment in creating a sustainable building in design, construction and operation.”


Instead of knocking down and starting


new, the focus was to retain and reuse as many materials and components as possible. The circular economy approach aims to maintain the value of assets even as staff and processes change. Throughout the project, the team operated with a highly collaborative philosophy – including challenging one another’s ideas. “This was essential to achieving a successful outcome for the client,” says Lazzarotto. Their commitment to this underlying philosophy in the project has seen the reuse of around 3,300 m2


of limestone,


35,000 tonnes of concrete and nearly 1,900 tonnes of steel.


Facade


According to Arup, Triton Square is one of the UK’s first large-scale projects where this circular economy approach has been applied to the facade. As the team examined the existing facade and how it was originally constructed, they realised that because of its robust condition and how it was still achieving sustainable targets in terms of energy and solar gains, the opportunity to dismantle and reuse the external skin was a realistic and carbon saving alternative to designing a new one.


WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK


© Simon Kennedy


Contractor Lendlease had to carefully plan the sequencing of the facade renewal operation, which involved the removal of 3000 m2


of panels and around


25,000 separate pieces. As the final component to be taken off was the first to be put back – all of the components had to be refurbished together.


The panels were then shipped to a pop-up factory set up by Lendlease in Essex (less than 30 miles away) where they were inspected, deep cleaned, refurbished and then sent back to site to be reinstalled. Establishing this factory instead of sending the panels abroad to Germany – the initial plan – saved around 25,000 transport miles – reducing carbon and also supporting UK jobs. Overall, opting to refurb the external facade has saved over 19,000 tonnes of carbon and represented a 66% reduction in costs. The process started in April 2018, and reinstallation did not begin until summer 2019.


Key interventions


As well as reusing the exterior part of the double-skin facade (the internal skin was replaced) the team’s approach to meet the objectives of the project were to reassess the original layout of the square plan with corner cores. “The key challenge was to keep to the brief without changing the footprint of the building,” says Lazzarotto. When the building was first designed, the


ADF NOVEMBER 2021


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