London, England
Recently completed in Hackney with an eye-catching presence, Waugh Thistleton Architects’ Black and White Building for The Office Group features timber throughout as central London’s tallest engineered timber office building.
The simplicity of this fully engineered timber office building lies in its groundbreaking innovation.
Setting a powerful sustainable agenda with only 410 kgCO2e/m2 embodied carbon (A1-A5), each component is designed to be as efficient as possible, resulting in an honest design without excess, in which material use has been optimized.
Designed to offer flexible, shared workspace to companies, this modest yet significant building with a powerful sustainable agenda is the tallest engineered timber office building in central London.
The six-story office building contains 38,000 square feet of flexible workspaces around a central core.
The timber used is a beech laminated veneer lumber (LVL) frame and cross-laminated timber (CLT) slabs.
Opting for hardwood LVL made larger interior spaces possible, as the product is up to three times stronger than steel, reducing beam and column sizes.
This decision also made for a slightly shorter building that better fits the site’s context.
CLT panels form the floors, roof, and some walls and were designed as two-way spanning floor slabs, which reduced their structural load.
With no structural internal partition walls and the MEP carefully co-ordinated to minimise visual intrusion, the layout can be easily adapted as future demands change.
The primary streets façades feature Tulipwood brise-soleil louvers wrapped around a glass curtain wall.
This particular wood was chosen for its durability and relatively low carbon impact.
Thermally treated for durability and fire protection, it is better suited for exterior use as a hardwood product.
Reducing embodied carbon and flexibility were the main themes of this project’s brief.
A 40 percent reduction in embodied carbon was calculated for the façade, in comparison to an equivalent aluminum facade.
In response to the client’s needs, the facade had to allow for well-lit internal spaces, while at the same time reducing the energy load needed to cool.
Thus, the decision was made to wrap the façade in louvers, which allows daylight into the interior, while mitigating heat load.
Its design was conducted with the help of parametric modeling, with a particular focus on the sun’s path throughout the day.
Heat gains and losses were mapped to achieve the most efficient façade design.
The spacing and depth of the louvers were determined in order to use the minimum amount of material.
The design creates a ‘step’ in the façade based on the different louver depths.
Assembled as ‘kit of parts’ the building was assembled with simple bolts, screws, and brackets.
The construction process thus had less of an impact than a concrete structure would have on the surrounding neighborhood.
It also required fewer people on-site than concrete or steel framing, with only six to eight workers onsite at a given time, and the building was built in 14 weeks.
Throughout the design, a focus was not only on sustainability but also on the experience of the occupant and the passerby.
The design is expressed through the constituent parts, avoiding excess or unnecessary architectural flourishes.
The beauty of the completed building stems from the inherent qualities of each layer and each material without decoration.
Project: Black and White Building
Architects: Waugh Thistleton Architects
Structural Engineers: Eckersley O’Callaghan
Structural Frame Specialists: Hybrid Structures
Facade Engineers: Eckersley O’Callaghan
Mechanical and Electrical Consultants: EEP
Project Manager: Opera
Main Contractor: MidGroup / Parkeray
Client: The Office Group
Photographers: Ed Reeve
