{"id":741311,"date":"2024-06-10T06:18:31","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T05:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/?p=741311"},"modified":"2024-06-10T08:56:06","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T07:56:06","slug":"how-ahmm-is-analysing-1-new-park-square-as-a-test-bed-for-a-future-twin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/specification\/how-ahmm-is-analysing-1-new-park-square-as-a-test-bed-for-a-future-twin","title":{"rendered":"How AHMM is analysing 1 New Park Square as a test bed for a future \u2018twin\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018We want to build the new building better, but cheaper, so we are interrogating everything.\u2019 AHMM associate and project lead Matt Hart is talking about the extensive post-construction analysis the practice is conducting on 1 New Park Square, a five-storey mixed-use building it completed in Edinburgh in 2022, in order to refine the design of its similarly-sized \u2018twin\u2019, which is to be built on an adjacent plot.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The 10,000m2<\/sup> building is part of Edinburgh Park, six miles west of Edinburgh city centre. This was originally laid out in the early 1990s to a Richard Meier masterplan following a traditional commercial business park model. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018There was a lot of surface parking, with primarily office buildings anchored at either end by Tesco and Morrisons stores,\u2019 says Hart. \u2018Everybody just drove in in the morning, drove to Morrisons to grab a sandwich at lunch and drove out again at the end of the day. There was nothing else to do once you got there.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The southern part of the site, which was not built out in the 90s, was later bought by developer Parabola, which commissioned Dixon Jones to design a higher-density, more mixed-use masterplan for it. \u2018The idea was to improve upon the existing business park model by providing residential and leisure uses, too,\u2019 recalls Hart.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It was an ambition helped in 2014 by the opening of a tram connection between the city centre and the airport, which passed through the site. AHMM, commissioned to design several of the office-led mixed-use buildings for the scheme, travelled with the client and Dixon Jones to look at business parks in Europe, such as Novartis in Basel. \u2018What we saw there really informed the approach here, using public space to form the heart.\u2019 This emphasis on the design of the public realm led to a new civic square designed by Gross Max, which the building overlooks and which marks the culmination of a small linear loch.<\/span><\/p>\n

The incorporation of public art into the development is notable and impressive, too. It is something Parabola became known for at its King\u2019s Place development in London. \u2018The aim is to bring as much culture as possible into everyday lives,\u2019 says Hart.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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1 New Park Square<\/p>\n\t

Source:Timothy Soar<\/p><\/div>\n

Eventually, up to 79,000m2<\/sup> of office space and 1,800 new homes are planned over future phases but, for now, 1 New Park Square is the first completed building in Phase One. There is a flexible events space at ground floor level, in addition to a 200-seat conference hall, reflecting the emphasis on engagement with the public. \u2018The aspiration was to have an active public ground floor. Part of this is the flexible event space. It\u2019s a restaurant; it\u2019s a bar; it\u2019s a music venue. It\u2019s a lot of things \u2013 and it\u2019s proving very popular,\u2019 says Hart.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A colonnade runs along the north, west and south sides, connecting the square to the nearby tram stop. On the upper four floors, flexible office space has been designed to be let singly or split up between tenants.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The building pushed the envelope in office design, both for the practice and the city, says Hart. \u2018It\u2019s the first Category A office building we\u2019ve built in Scotland, so we were working to very different budgets from London \u2013 a challenge in itself from the get-go. But it sowed the seed of a lean, simple building.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The design draws on lessons learned from AHMM\u2019s White Collar Factory in London\u2019s Old Street: generous floor-to-ceiling heights, good daylighting, exposed surfaces augmenting thermal comfort and reducing energy use. It was also informed by AHMM\u2019s recent Cat A rip-out\/fit out research, which has focused on reducing waste.<\/span><\/p>\n

Craig Robertson, AHMM\u2019s head of sustainability, explains the approach: \u2018If there\u2019s minimal amounts of stuff added, there\u2019s minimal stuff to be ripped out, in turn minimising costs and maximising lease velocity turnover.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

The stripped-back aesthetic, while hardly novel, is new to the office market in Edinburgh. \u2018Edinburgh is much more conventional, perhaps 10 years behind London. The idea of a very light fit-out was quite radical,\u2019 says Robertson.<\/span><\/p>\n

The site was very different from the usual tight urban office plot, too. \u2018On a typical central London site you have multiple party walls, awkward shapes, underground infrastructure to avoid. Here we had almost carte blanche.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

So was this a problem in itself? \u2018Yes. There was no context. So we decided to take Edinburgh as our starting point for the external architecture. It\u2019s a city of stone. While we couldn\u2019t afford stone, we went for a grey-brown, stone-like brick.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The very open nature of the plot at all sides led to intensive environmental modelling of the four brick elevations to manage solar gain. To the north, slender brick piers sit between expansive glazing, offering views to the loch. To the south, double-height loggias and 600mm-deep reveals offer passive solar shading. To the east and west the deep reveals are chamfered, offering oblique views out.<\/p>\n

The choice of massive masonry fa\u00e7ades and emphasis on the passive reduction of operational carbon, rather than embodied carbon reduction, in part reflects the building\u2019s 2017 design genesis, although Robertson says: \u2018We did push the structural engineer hard on embodied carbon at the time. And we sourced at least 40 per cent of the concrete mix as GGBS.\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n

Certainly the project proved a great test bed for lowering operational carbon. \u2018As well as intensive fa\u00e7ade solar gains exercise, it has presented good opportunities to test our environmental strategies to investigate natural ventilation and very low energy conditioning,\u2019 says Robertson. \u2018Obviously it is serviced to work to BCO requirements but, being of a relatively small size, we can test ventilating the building naturally all year round, which we think will work.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018The White Collar Factory has to deal with London peak summer temperatures, but that\u2019s not an issue here, so we have the opportunity even to eliminate mechanical cooling.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

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The building is also proving to be a perfect test prototype for a second, similarly-sized \u2018twin\u2019 building planned for the adjacent site. Robertson ays: \u2018We\u2019re seeing the building effectively as a kit of parts that could be developed and refined for its \u201ctwin\u201d but also rolled out across other commercial buildings in the development.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Extensive post-occupancy monitoring will be up and running later this year, once the building is fully let. In the meantime, the practice has been conducting a post-construction analysis of key design features.<\/span><\/p>\n

This includes refining the fa\u00e7ade design and construction to improve net internal area efficiency, reducing carbon in the structure, optimising the core and improving the arrival \u2018journey\u2019 through the building.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2018The window openings are quite complicated, with a lot of embodied carbon in the steel bracketry holding up the brick reveals,\u2019 says Robertson. \u2018So we\u2019ve heavily interrogated different ways of making the fa\u00e7ade \u2013 by using precast or more traditional brick and block approaches \u2013 to try and reduce embodied carbon and take lessons from that to the second building.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Regarding the structure, the engineers did some analysis and found that introducing more columns actually reduces the embodied carbon within the building frame substantially.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Working with the MEP engineer, AHMM has also been looking at ways to reduce the size of the core \u2013 moving the variable air valve (VAV) control units for the ventilation system from inside the risers to soffits to reduce the size of risers and turning the toilets into super-loos to save on space. In total up to 55m2<\/sup> savings per floor have been identified, meaning lettable space could be increased from 86 per cent to 88 per cent. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Hart says that, while the process of refinement and almost marginal gains may not always be apparent in the finished architecture, \u2018in the guts of the building we are doing a lot of work to minimise the carbon and maximise circularity\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018The ideal,\u2019 he sums up, \u2018is to make the new building leaner, function better and be easier to build \u2013 making everything work a lot harder but without undermining the quality of the journey or the architecture.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Reception, 1 New Park Square<\/p>\n\t

Source:Timothy Soar<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018We want to build the new building better, but cheaper, so we are interrogating everything.\u2019 AHMM associate and project lead Matt Hart is talking about the extensive post-construction analysis the practice is conducting on 1 New Park Square, a five-storey mixed-use building it completed in Edinburgh in 2022, in order to refine the design of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32845,"featured_media":741347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"ep_exclude_from_search":false},"categories":[721],"tags":[5860,1350,6276,101041],"yoast_head":"\nHow AHMM is analysing 1 New Park Square as a test bed for a future \u2018twin\u2019<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Allford Hall Monaghan Morris is using its 1 New Park Square project in Edinburgh as a test bed to refine the design of a forthcoming \u2018twin\u2019 building\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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