Setting a new benchmark for sustainable workspace

Worship Square

Shoreditch, London

Located in the heart of Shoreditch, London’s bustling tech district, Worship Square will be a major new commercial space defined by its focus on sustainability and wellbeing.

Worship Square will be international workspace provider HB Reavis’ most sustainable building to date, and aims to be net zero carbon in both construction and operation. 

Buro Happold has been engaged from stage four of the project, developing building services (MEP) engineering and sustainability consultancy to ensure the project achieve its ambitious targets. The design team is targeting the BREEAM standard of “outstanding”, thanks to its industry-leading approach to sustainable workspace.

Worship Square sets a new standard for a truly sustainable workspace, proactively supporting businesses and employees to meet environmental goals.

The project will create a net zero carbon building in both construction and operation, designed to achieve 5* NABERS rating and is targeting BREEAM Outstanding.

The building is designed to reduce embodied carbon by more than 50% compared to current industry benchmarks.

This reduction is equivalent to the average yearly carbon emissions for 3,000 homes.

Embodied carbon reduction is set to be 18% better than the GLA 2030 target for commercial buildings.  

Challenge

Embodied Carbon targets at Worship Square will be more than 50% lower than the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) 2020 baseline and 18% lower than the 2030 GLA (Greater London Authority) target, setting a new benchmark for the city. It is on track to achieve full net zero carbon status, BREEAM outstanding, EPC rating A, WELL gold/platinum and is designed to be NABERS 5*.

Worship Square has also been designed to promote employee wellbeing, including a fitness studio, private and communal gardens, state-of-the-art end-of-journey amenities, in-house bookable Brompton bicycles, a destination restaurant and a ground floor, plant-filled lobby with an openable facade leading on to a new public square, which will host a full calendar of events.

Smart tech forms the backbone of Worship Square, which has already received WiredScore platinum and is one of only three schemes globally to achieve SmartScore platinum. As well as an in-house occupier app, businesses will be able to monitor, and report live energy use and water consumption data, helping to continually improve and make the building as energy efficient as possible. Diverse routes of power and wifi will cover all common areas including the terraces and public square to ensure connectivity resilience to allow people to work anywhere, uninterrupted.

Buro Happold was brought into the project midway through and one of the key challenges for our experts was to deliver on a design that had been initiated and tendered for by a different team.

Solution

We worked closely with the design team, including JM Architects, to ensure the building services infrastructure would meet all expectations and support the project in its ambitions around both sustainability and occupier wellbeing. We revised the original building services design, making a range of significant system improvements, liaising with manufacturers to find products that would fit best with the design for ventilation, heating, cooling and other internals systems.

Operational energy use will be reduced through air source heat pumps, which will create efficient heating and cooling delivery, smart modelling, and photovoltaic cells on the roof to provide onsite renewable energy.

With more than 3,200 plants from over 49 different species, Worship Square’s biophilic design begins on arrival with a ‘green heart’ living lobby and provides purer air while blurring the lines between outdoors and the inside space. The nature-led expansive terraces mean that working from the office doesn’t always have to be indoors. As well as increasing biodiversity and attracting pollinators, the large rooftop communal terrace will include urban allotments where employees can take gardening lessons to learn how to grow their own produce and a wormery to transform employees’ organic waste into compost for the terraces.

The building will provide around 120,000ft² of workspace and more than 9,000ft² of terracing and is designed to allow businesses to grow organically within the space. This includes a range of collaborative and flexible on-demand spaces from desks, studios and offices to meeting rooms, event spaces and an auditorium.

Value

Due to complete in early 2024 and with the construction programme already underway, HB Reavis put a design strategy in place to create a workplace that is both future-facing and user-centric in its design and operation. Inspired by local architecture, Worship Square’s eye-catching looks and blue facade, designed by MAKE Architects, will create a recognisable local landmark and give the building a distinct identity.

Our multidisciplinary team of experts worked closely with the wider design teams to ensure the building’s services are at the heart of its ambition to provide a sustainable and forward-looking working environment.