The Black and White Building

The Black and White Building The design pushes the boundaries of sustainable workplace design, with a concept derived from the materials and the aspiration to use the minimum whilst achieving the maximum. Offering flexible, shared workspaces in the heart of the city, Black and White is central London’s tallest fully engineered office building, setting a powerful exemplar of sustainable building, with only 410 kgCO2e/m2 embodied carbon (A1-A5). Each component has been designed to be as efficient as possible, resulting in an honest design without excess. Located in a busy area of offices, it was essential that the building’s construction did not negatively affect its surrounding; through its use of CLT, the project took around six months less to build and involved 80% fewer truck deliveries than an equivalent concrete building, reducing congestion and pollution on the streets. Offsite prefabrication further reduced site waste and enabled a quiet, dust free, dry construction site. A site waste management plan was implemented to reduce construction waste, whilst a pre-demolition audit of the existing structure was carried out with recyclable waste streams identified, and as a result much of the site waste was diverted from landfill. Through its use of off-site, prefabricated engineered mass-timber, the Black and White Building represents a new urban design typology that actively reduces the environmental consequences of the construction sector. Generating 37% less embodied carbon than a concrete building, the Black & White Building saves 1,083.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide, and 55% of the embodied carbon of the building is sequestered within the timber structure itself. By optimizing its use of materials, the building achieves only 528 kgCO2e/m2 of embodied carbon, resulting in a LETI A rating (A-C), and a BREEAM Excellent rating. The aesthetic finishing of the building is derived from purely function al components; parametrically designed timber curtain wall reduces solar gain, maximises internal light levels, and enhances natural ventilation. To ensure that our building met its ambitious sustainability credentials, Life Cycle Assessments were integrated as a central tenet of our design methodology. This assessment considers the environmental impact of all the stages of a building's life, taking into consideration the raw materials and energy used in production, construction, operation, maintenance, and end-of-life disposal. The use of LCAs throughout the design development of a building can help inform decisions, highlighting of certain material inefficiencies and encouraging the use or construction types over others. The calculation of the building's carbon impact is split between the various components which make up a building, helping to draw attention to the specific areas of improvement. Incorporating this practice within design development encourages industry stakeholders to take accountability for the carbon impacts of what we build, and sets a powerful new precedent in the ambition to decarbonise construction.