10 Fenchurch Avenue in London achieves BREEAM rating of Excellent

10 Fenchurch Avenue, London, is a modern mixed-use office development in the heart of London’s financial and insurance district. When built, it achieved a BREEAM UK New Construction 2014 rating of Excellent.

Completed in 2018, and designed by Eric Parry Architects, the development comprises of a seventeen-storey building that includes 14 floors of office space from mezzanine to level 13.

The tenth level of the building features a crown design with upper office floors, a roof restaurant, and a publicly accessible roof garden. This roof garden is one of the most popular in London, offering spectacular views of the city, and has won multiple design awards.

The building also offers a four-storey basement including car, motorbike and bicycle parking on two levels with plant spread across three levels.

Generali Real Estate, the building owner, in line with its strong focus on the environmental, social and governance sustainability of its entire assets portfolio, aimed to achieve a BREEAM In-Use certification at an ‘Excellent’ rating. It felt this would suitably demonstrate the building’s sustainability credentials and performance.

EVORA partnered with the BNP Paribas Real Estate project team to achieve this goal through a three-phase process.

The first phase involved an initial pre-assessment review to determine the expected score and any potential shortfalls from the target ‘Excellent’ rating, as well as the identification of improvement opportunities.

The second phase provided support in the form of an improvement pathway program, which advised on the implementation of relevant improvement opportunities before certification.

The final phase involved the delivery of the certification assessment, including a site visit and the production of a detailed and high-quality BREEAM assessor report.

The client made alterations to the building in order to add sustainable value and secure the ‘Excellent’ BREEAM In-Use rating.

The building provides excellent visual comfort through daylighting and anti-glare measures and ample accessibility through features designed for maximised inclusivity. It also has optimised energy efficiency to reduce cost and environmental impact.

It has many bicycle parking spaces and electric vehicle recharging stations to promote sustainable commutes. Its systems are also designed to reduce waste, with grey water and rainwater harvesting systems, chillers with refrigerant leak detection system, and a dedicated construction waste management space.

The popular roof garden is a haven for biodiversity in the city, featuring native flora and bird boxes.

In addition to helping meet the goal of certification, the BREEAM assessment helped the property management team measure and report on sustainability practices and performance.

Health and Wellbeing

10 Fenchurch Avenue scored highly for visual comfort due to optimising daylighting, glare control, lighting levels and views out from the building

There is also widespread integration of accessibility and inclusive design features, including contemplation, wellness and mother’s rooms.

Energy

The building fabric played a key part in the project’s strong performance for energy efficiency.

HVAC and lighting were also designed to reduce energy consumption whilst providing maximum utility to building occupants.

An extensive energy sub metering has also been installed to allow tenants to monitor and understand energy use.

Transport

To encourage sustainable transport to the building, ample bicycle parking spaces were installed. Facilities such as showers and lockers have also been installed to cater for those travelling by bicycle.

Inclusion of electric vehicle recharging stations also further motivates sustainable transportation choices.