IDR - Independent Design Review
Seal House
Watkins Payne carried out the Independent Design Review role for Seal House, a commercial office development, located in central London.
Colmore Gate is a landmark development in the heart of Birmingham. The existing building consists of 16 floors with two basement floors over a podium and tower section constructed in the mid-1990s.
We have been working with the design team to extend and refurbish the building to provide 23 floors of office accommodation in the tower and 9 floors in the podium section, totalling approx. 315,000ft2 NIA. As part of the refurbishment, the existing VAV air handling system will be removed and replaced with an air source heat pump system with on-floor heat recovery units to provide comfort cooling, heating, and ventilation. Additionally the building will benefit from a building and energy management systems, high-efficiency LED lighting and controls.
The project ethos revolves around a core carbon principle of retaining existing structure and foundations and working within that constraint to provide new and exciting office space.
As the Sustainability Consultant on the project we are targeting BREEAM Outstanding, WELL Core Platinum, ActiveScore Platinum and RESET certified to maximise the scheme’s sustainability credentials. We are also completing a whole life carbon and circular economy assessment to see that we are maximising re-use and aiming to identify further reductions in carbon where possible.
In addition the building is subject to the Design for Performance approach with the aim to achieve a 5 Star NABERS UK rating. The building is projected to deliver an ‘A’ EPC rating.
The building’s planning application was submitted to Birmingham City Council in August 2023, and we provided all the necessary supporting documentation, including the sustainability statement and energy strategy.
We are looking forward to our continued involvement in the project, pending positive planning feedback.
Watkins Payne carried out the Independent Design Review role for Seal House, a commercial office development, located in central London.
5 Broadgate is a new 12 story building next to Liverpool Street station in London which offer 700,000ft² of high quality office accommodation. This is the new headquarters for the Union Bank of Switzerland housing office and trading floors. Watkins Payne supplied building services engineering, BREEAM duties and energy consultancy to achieve BREEAM ‘Excellent’ and an EPC A rating.
Apex Tower located next to New Malden train station is a 15-story office development. At ground level an enlarged prestigious reception area is provided which leads to commuter facility with unisex showers and drying room. The refurbishment works is targeting BREEAM RFO ‘Very Good’ and achieved an Energy Performance Certification rating of ‘B’.
The office building is targeting Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of A.
