Regional Winner Commercial Workplace South of England (outside M25) and South Wales - 97 Milton Park
MEPC's development is a 38,000ft2 speculative office building within an established business park. The judges considered that the building did a good job providing a very attractive working environment within a clean flexible floor plate. The rectangular shape offers flexibility for a single HQ or two occupiers per floor, with an offset core enabling division along a roughly 60:40 ratio. Access to the building is via a three storey, fully glazed atrium and individual floors have equal quality entrances. Ceiling heights provide excellent levels of day lighting and the planning grid offers a high degree of flexibility for occupational fit-out.
The judges were impressed that the developer had departed from standard air conditioning options for speculative buildings and adopted reduced energy, fan-assisted displacement. An active under-floor air supply system allows local control and a variety of fit-out options with ease of movement of individual fan tiles that sit on the raised floor.
The building meets key BCO specification criteria. As a long-term owner, the developer has clearly focused on minimising maintenance costs, which will benefit future occupiers. A simple palette of materials including facing brick and aluminium curtain walling with randomly placed coloured glazing panels adds life to the otherwise regular façade.
Notable sustainability features include fan-assisted displacement air conditioning, roof mounted solar powered water heating, rainwater harvesting, solar control glazing and exposed concrete soffits.
The overall package is a high quality, well specified and flexible office building which manages to promote sustainability within a speculative commercial development.
Text reproduced by kind permission of the BCO. For further information please contact http://www.bco.org.uk
