Comment
NSC 5
June 19
Steel supporting
air quality drive
Imagine having the opportunity to make a simple design decision that would give a building carbon savings equivalent
to a gas and electricity emission free operation for 26 years. And at the same time as adding three storeys to an existing
five-storey office block.
That is being achieved at British Land’s 1 Triton Square development on the north side of London’s Euston Road, as
you can read in this issue of NSC. The existing concrete-framed building was no longer attractive to modern commercial
tenants and would usually have been heading for demolition. But by deciding to use steel for a vertical expansion the
design team was able to redevelop the originally concrete-framed structure to allow the reuse of materials including
some 1,900 tonnes of steel.
Some innovative strengthening of the existing structure along with the extra floors almost doubled the building’s
internal area, increasing its all-important lettable space. As you can read, this was only possible using steel.
For the client, sustainability was more of an attraction of this solution than cost savings, something we can expect
to hear more of. The world is growing ever more environmentally conscious, and one of the key areas of concern is the
impact of emissions on air quality, especially in cities. Much of these emissions arise from traffic fumes and political
attention is being driven by public concerns towards finding solutions like emission control zones, promoting electric
vehicles and phasing out diesel vehicles.
But improving air quality will involve more than attacking traffic emissions, and buildings are well known to be major
producers of emissions through their embodied carbon as well as their lighting, heating and air conditioning. Public and
political attention is turning ever more closely to the air quality impact of buildings and design-led solutions like Triton
Square will have a big part to play in delivering improvements.
Embodied carbon savings from projects like Triton Square may have little direct impact on local air quality but globally
all of these carbon savings will add up, and they will have to be achieved as a matter of routine.
When strong environmental credentials can be delivered alongside cost-effective developments with the sort of
modern, aesthetically pleasing environments that steel construction routinely provides, the case for steel has been made.
Other benefits of steel that we see deployed to great effect in this month’s NSC include the 18 Hanover Square
development, which sits on top of Bond Street station on the new Elizabeth Line, or Crossrail. Here, a late request
by a tenant to have an atrium included as part of the design was easily accommodated by the steelwork contractor
redesigning the fabrication programme while avoiding delays to the overall scheme.
In Salford, 100 Embankment is providing BREEAM ‘Excellent’ offices on a former railway station site, reinvigorating the
area where Salford meets Manchester, overlooking Manchester Cathedral. In line with the increasing trend of building
owners and designers to show off the fact that their frames are steel, the client has asked for the entire steel frame to be
exposed, creating an office environment in keeping with the area’s industrial heritage. Steel may be selected for a variety
of reasons, but wherever you see a steel frame you’ll know that it was also the environmental choice.
Nick Barrett - Editor
BARRETT
STEEL LIMITED
Headline sponsors:
Gold sponsors: Ficep UK Ltd | National Tube Stockholders and Cleveland Steel & Tubes |
Peddinghaus Corporation | voestalpine Metsec plc | Wedge Group Galvanizing Ltd
Silver sponsors: Jack Tighe Ltd | Kaltenbach Limited | Tata Steel | Trimble Solutions (UK) Ltd
Bronze sponsors: AJN Steelstock Ltd | Barnshaw Section Benders Limited | Hempel | Joseph Ash Galvanizing |
Jotun Paints | Sherwin-Williams | Tension Control Bolts Ltd | Voortman Steel Machinery
For further information about steel construction and Steel for Life please visit
www.steelconstruction.info or www.steelforlife.org
Steel for Life is a wholly owned subsidiary of BCSA
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