Sustainability Case Studies

LEED Gold

FOR HOK OFFICE FIT-OUT

Focus: LEED accreditation

Neil Chappell and building services manager, Ray Greenfield, have recently completed the fit-out of a 2140 sqm office space for American architect HOK in the Qube, a new building on Tottenham Court Road, London. The seven month project, designed by HOK for its own use, is part of a global office expansion that will see all of its international business hubs LEED accredited. The London office, one of the first to be completed, has achieved LEED Gold, an accomplishment that both Chappell and Greenfield are rightly proud of.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF CHALLENGE

The challenges that the Overbury project team overcame to ‘get the gold’ have not been physical or logistical. While the project has included sourcing and installing special items, such as recycled glass worktops and lambs’ wool insulation, plus using low VOC (volatile organic compound) paints. The hardest part has been demonstrating the environmental status of mainly UK sourced materials and products in a way that satisfies the stringent standards of the US-formulated LEED accreditation system.

“LEED calls for a whole different set of criteria,” says Chappell. “We were being asked to obtain levels of refrigerant types in air conditioning units; prove the chemical compounds of glues used by manufacturers on their products; all kinds of things that you can normally take as read.

The result has seen Overbury and all of its sub-contractors pull together to collect and collate a large amount of data from suppliers and manufacturers to satisfy the documentation requirements of LEED.

“Everyone has worked tremendously well as a team,” says Greenfield. “The complete supply chain has bent over backwards to ensure we met the client’s Gold target.”

FIRST CLASS SERVICES

Greenfield’s services team was met with considerable challenges in ensuring that this fully air conditioned office was as energy efficient and comfortable to work in as possible. The lighting is controlled by both movement and daylight sensors to ensure no lamp is left on when not required. The architect’s model-making room features its own special extract system to deal with noxious fumes and the entire office is fitted with air quality sensors, which activate alarms and dampers if the CO₂ levels rise above a LEED prescribed level.

Finally, when all of the equipment was installed, Greenfield adopted the role of commissioning manager to check the correct operation of all the mechanical and electrical plant and ensure that it performed to the energy efficient standards specified by the client and LEED.

“Every aspect of the installation was checked to make sure it was running at its optimum in terms of energy efficiency and environmental performance,” says Greenfield. “There was a lot of documentation specifically for LEED accreditation, something that I hadn’t tackled before, but a challenge that was well worth it to ensure we achieved our goals.”

As the two Overbury managers and their respective teams move on to new projects, with entirely new sets of challenges, they can look back at the HOK fit-out and know that while it was an uphill battle at times, everyone has learned a lot from it. In addition, Overbury can lay claim to being the first firm in the UK to complete a LEED Gold office fit-out.