Sustainability
20 Air Street
The project also involved the refurbishment of the reception space and improvement of the cycle store entrance and wayfinding at basement level.
Northcliffe House, the original Daily Mail building south of Fleet Street has been extended and refurbished. The project received planning consent in January 2021 and we have taken the design through to RIBA Stage 4. The practice has been working on the project from the initial feasibility studies through to the present.
The project involved the refurbishment and extension of the existing building to deliver over 260,000sq ft of office space over lower ground to sixth floor levels, together with a new ground floor entrance, new landscaped terraces and retail provision, along with new basement end of journey facilities.
Sustainability was high on the Client’s agenda throughout with the project targeting BREEAM ‘Excellent’ from the outset. As the project developed the aspiration for the achievement of BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ was ambitiously pursued and in August 2023 the project was successfully awarded this ‘Outstanding’ rating. The sustainability principles were adopted where the constraints of the existing building allowed together with maximising biodiversity and renewable energy solutions.
As part of the refurbishment, in line with the current London Plan requirements, the combustion of natural gas has been omitted from the building. Heating and domestic hot water is now provided by air source heat pumps.
The low and zero carbon technologies included in the scheme are air source heat pumps to provide the heating and cooling, water source heat pumps to elevate the domestic hot water services temperature and an array of PV above the roof external plant enclosures. The incorporation of these LZCs in conjunction with energy efficiency measures such as LED lighting throughout with occupancy and daylight dimming controls has contributed to an overall Building Regulations Part L2 carbon emission saving of 64.1 %.
‘The Northcliffe won the award for best Refurbishment and Fit Out (RFO) at the BREEAM 2024 Awards in July 2024.’
The project also involved the refurbishment of the reception space and improvement of the cycle store entrance and wayfinding at basement level.
The property situated on the A23 near Brighton was granted permission by the council under permitted development rights to change to a residential site from office development to provide 63 apartments. The apartments are separate over seven stories consisting of one, two and three bed apartments. The redeveloped to offer 59,000ft² of high quality residential accommodation, for which Watkins Payne supplied building services engineering and energy consultancy to achieve an EPCs between B – C rating.
Situated just a stone’s throw away from Watford Junction station, the Egale 2 building has been tastefully renovated into a multi-tenanted office environment, with a floor by floor split for tenancies providing a total of 11,000sqft of office space over four floors.
The completed site now comprises four detached industrial warehouse units ranging from 14,000sq ft to 36,000sq ft, all with naturally ventilated and heated offices. The two larger units each have an 8 person MRL passenger lift, while the smaller units have been provided with platform lifts. The warehouse area was designed as a shell for future fit-out with capped off utility services.
Saffron House was refurbished to provide 38,000ft² of high quality office accommodation. Watkins Payne supplied building services engineering which saw the 1st, 2nd and the 3rd floor including the ground floor reception of Saffron House converted into open plan office areas and reception.