Office fit-out with sustainability and wellbeing at its heart

The UK Green Building Council (UK-GBC) recently refurbished its London headquarters, with a design team drawn from its membership and the aim of challenging industry thinking as to what is achievable in a small scale fit out.

The refurbishment of the organisation’s headquarters in central London has also enabled UK-GBC to lead by example with a project that has achieved the lowest embodied carbon footprint ever recorded for an office refurbishment in the UK.

This stunning example of a sustainable office refurbishment serves as an exemplar for sustainability right in the heart of our cities and also shows that companies that focus on reducing their carbon footprint can also benefit from increased productivity and lower energy bills.

“In refurbishing our own office space, we had a fantastic opportunity to trial and showcase the very best solutions sourced from our membership.”
Julie Hirigoyen, chief executive of UK-GBC

UK-GBC

UK-GBC is an industry-led network with a mission to radically improve the sustainability of the built environment.

A charity with over 400 member organisations spanning the entire value chain, it represents the voice of the industry’s current and future leaders who are striving for transformational change.

UK-GBC inspires and challenges its members, helping them to identify and adopt the most sustainable, viable solutions.

They also engage their members in advocating a progressive message to government, informing and influencing policy. 

Phenomenal added value

The office refurbishment was deliberately designed to also feature a range of innovative wellbeing measures to deliver a working space that is both better for people, and better for the environment.

The brief aimed to balance the health, wellbeing and productivity of the twenty-five regular office users with outstanding resource and energy efficiency and a low-carbon approach. 

It demonstrates that even a 160m² floor space can deliver phenomenal commercial, social and environmental value if each decision is challenged and scrutinised.

Wellbeing measures have been incorporated into the design in order to improve staff satisfaction, productivity and overall health and wellness.

The space is designed to accommodate a variety of working styles and agile working choices, including an open plan working area based on hot-desking; a sound-proof ‘telephone booth’ for private calls; a height-adjustable standing meeting table and several softer break-out spaces for informal discussions and social interaction.

Also included are an automated low-energy LED lighting system; and products and finishes that minimise (and in some cases actively remove) pollutants from the air.

In order to maximise the opportunities to learn from this refurbishment, the office will be subject to a post-occupancy evaluation to assess its operational performance against factors such as energy efficiency and air quality.

Staff satisfaction will be evaluated through ongoing surveys, the results of which will be compared against data collected prior to the refurb.

UK-GBC is producing content designed to help built environment professionals learn from the project, with a focus on how the design team’s innovative and collaborative ways of working meant that the project was able to achieve its ambitious goals. Watch interviews with the project’s design team below.