2 minute read
Overview of the pilot projects
The Forge, Southwark, London
Landsec’s landmark commercial office development, The Forge, is a 140,000sqft scheme located to the West of Southwark Bridge Road close to the Tate Modern at Bankside.
Comprising two new eight storey-office buildings and a public courtyard, The Forge is the UK’s first Net Zero Carbon (NZC) commercial development recognised by the UK Green Building Council as aligning with its framework definition of NZC in construction and operations, and the first office to be built using the highly sustainable platform approach to design for manufacture and assembly (P-DfMA).
The project has been awarded funding from Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, for its pioneering design and ground-breaking construction techniques, which has contributed to a circa 25% reduction, to date, in embodied carbon from the initial design stage.
The objective of the build is to use innovation and modern methods of construction to target improvements across some or all the following five measures: ‘Faster, Better, Cheaper, Safer, Greener’. To achieve this, Landsec has assembled a team based on their innovation credentials including the designers, Bryden Wood, and joint venture contractors Mace and Sir Robert McAlpine providing construction management services.
Building offices using ‘kit of parts’ platform design, automated construction processes and digital technology will revolutionise office construction, making it safer and more productive, reducing time, cost and carbon emissions, helping the UK to meet its target to be NZC by 2050.
The scheme completes at the end of 2022.
Norton Folgate, British Land’s Blossom Street development, refurbishes and extends historic warehouses and creates new buildings to deliver 340,000sqft of modern workspace and associated retail close to Liverpool Street Station.
The project is creating sensitively designed buildings, using a combination of offsite manufacture and traditional methods, to bring many vacant or underused buildings in the area back into useful economic use.
To deliver this project, British Land put together a design and build team led by Skanska as main contractor, AHMM as architect, with support from Stanton Williams, Morris + Company (MoCo) and DSDHA. Arup and AKT II are MEP and structural engineer respectively.
Early whole team engagement has enabled strong collaborative relationships to be established to better understand this project’s complex and bespoke requirements. This has included the development of an offsite prefabricated façade solution, that has helped reduce the original build programme by three months.
The scheme completes at the end 2023.
