Watkins Payne provided MEP systems and IT cabling design services for the fit-out of 186,000ft² of commercial offices in the eight storey 1 Forbury Place in Reading, which formed the focus of SSE Services plc’s relocation strategy to consolidate several buildings from across southern England and accommodate 1,500 employees in a single location.
The Cat B fit-out design supports agile working, collaboration and connectivity, optimising employee and visitor comfort. Facilities include a café with catering facilities on the ground floor, main and secondary plant equipment rooms, a sixth floor conference and meeting rooms suite, and agile open plan office areas on other floors consisting of collaboration spaces, meeting pods and booths with VC facilities.
The majority of the base build MEP systems were retained, adapted and modified with flexibility in mind, to ‘future proof’ and support the Client’s needs.
The base build air conditioning, which is provided by electric VRF systems was modified to suit the fit-out. A standby generator was installed for resilience, and a fully networked CCTV and security access control system was provided to meet the Client’s operational requirements.
The Practice also assisted the Client in the initial due diligence exercise as part of the lease negotiations.
Client
Gross Internal Floor Area
The Crown Estate’s redevelopment of Albany House and 80-82 Mortimer Street has been an extensive and vital project to the area’s revitalization. Among the project’s numerous tasks,
The office building is targeting Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of A.
The refurbishment provides office space, along with the ground floor being granted A1 retail use. High-level exposed services were designed to give an industrial warehouse feel. The offices are heated and cooled by independent variable refrigerant flow (VRF) air source heat pump systems and illuminated by suspended linear LED fittings.
The building at 1 New Burlington Place has been redeveloped to offer 183,000ft² of high quality office and retail accommodation, for which Watkins Payne supplied building services engineering, vertical transportation engineering and energy consultancy to achieve an EPC A rating. We also supplied BREEAM services and achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating for the development.
Building 5 has been shortlisted for the BCO regional awards!