Sector: Offices

Location: London, UK

Architect: Foster + Partners

The European headquarters for Bloomberg is one of the world’s most environmentally-friendly office buildings.

Designed by Foster + Partners for a 3.2-acre site in the heart of the City of London, the scheme comprises a pair of connected 10-storey stone volumes linked by aerial bridges. It hosts some 1.1 million square feet of office

space – as well as a new entrance to Bank Underground station, cafes and restaurants, two public plazas, and

a museum dedicated to the Roman archaeologic site it stands upon.

With a BREEAM rating of ‘Outstanding’ at a score of 99.1%, the building has been designed to deliver significant savings in water and energy consumption. Bronze fins set into the stone facades open and close in accordance with weather conditions to ventilate the space, while a smart device controls air distribution in

accordance with the number of people using the building at any one time.

Rainwater is collected from the roof, basins and showers to service vacuum flush toilets, and ceilings are covered in

2.5 million polished aluminium ‘petals’ that regulate acoustics, as well as temperature and light. A 210-metre

bronze ramp winds through six floors of the open-plan office furnished with sit-stand desks, encouraging staff

to walk rather than use the lift and perhaps meet a colleague on the way.

When the Royal Institute of British Architects awarded the building its prestigious Stirling Prize in 2018,

then-president Ben Derbyshire said the scheme had “not just raised the bar for office design and city planning, but smashed the ceiling”. Kingspan was commissioned to

create a bespoke American red oaktopped flooring system that would meet the demands of the design

and its sustainability targets.

The starting point was the existing TLM6 access floor system, which creates an accessible void for services beneath. But due to the building’s open floor plate,

the design called for much larger, 576 x 1334mm panels than the standard 600 x 600mm dimensions of the product, and with this increase in scale came fragility – presenting the team with its first opportunity to innovate.

The team needed to ‘think outside the box’ to create a more robust panel that would reduce waste through damage during installation and cost less to replace because of wear and tear in the future.

After rigorous testing, the technicians eschewed the typical solution of bonding timber veneers onto the boards altogether. Instead, they settled on using two separate systems – using the standard modular TLM26 access floor system below a newly-developed magnetised timber covering. “It provided everything the designers and client wanted – a timber floor finish with a homogenous aesthetic, ease of access into the floor void, ease of replacement in the event of damage and a reduction in construction phase and long-term waste,” says Devereux.

Some 34,000 square metres of this Attiro magnet-backed engineered timber overlay was laid over 37,000

square metres of the TLM26 access floor system to create floors throughout the building. On-site cutting of the

materials – all FSC certified – meant offcuts could be used elsewhere in the project, reducing waste in the installation process. “If one timber stave on a pre-bonded panel was damaged, 0.77 square metres of timber plus the panel would have to be replaced and disposed, whereas with the magnetic Attiro only 0.23 square metres would have to be replaced,” says Devereux

Interior designer Susanne Sudholz (née Martitz) set out to design an unconventional, eye-catching and energy-efficient home for her family. With a passion for sustainable building design, Sudholz selected the Kingspan insulated roof and wall panels for both their aesthetics and their environmental credentials.

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Sector: Residential

Location: Bath, UK

Architect: Nash Partnership

Photography: Grant Frazer Photography

Situated in the Bath Conservation Area, the stunning grade II listed building has been renovated and expanded by Acorn Property Group to create a series of luxury apartments and homes.

The main building, which previously served as an all-girls high school, has been carefully converted into apartments. The grounds were divided into four residential quarters and several new build homes were constructed around the main building to offer a variety of accommodation options.

Architects, Nash Partnership, were mindful to ensure that the additional properties would be in keeping with the area. The building exterior references Bath’s famed Georgian aesthetic whilst internal spaces include all the benefits of modern construction.

To optimise space within the properties whilst ensuring they meet modern thermal performance standards, Kingspan Kooltherm® K108 Cavity Board was specified for the walls of the new buildings whilst Kingspan Kooltherm K7 Pitched Roof Board was chosen for the pitched roofs – minimising heat loss whilst maintaining head height in the top floor rooms.