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BCO Awards 2010: British Council For Offices Prize

British Council For Offices Prize : Winners – Buildings + Architects

12 Oct 2010

BCO Award Winners 2010

President’s Award

David McAlpine and the Sir Robert McAlpine Family

Best of the Best

Eleven Brindleyplace, Birmingham, central England
Glenn Howells Architects

photograph © James Brittain

Innovation

West Lothian Civic Centre, Howden South Road, Livingston, Scotland

National Awards

Corporate Workplace
Guardian News & Media, Kings Place, London, England

Commercial Workplace
Eleven Brindleyplace, Birmingham

Fit-out of Workplace
PricewaterhouseCoopers, 141 Bothwell Street, Glasgow, Scotland

Refurbished/Recycled Workplace
Broad Gate, 22-26 The Headrow, Leeds

Projects up to 2,000m²
Graeae Theatre Company, Bradbury Studios, 138 Kingsland Road, London

WINNING TEAM’S SUCCESS AT BCO NATIONAL AWARDS

Innovative engineering design consultants Maleon, is this week celebrating winning an award at the prestigious BCO (British Council for Offices) 2010 awards.

Maleon, which is based in Sawbridgeworth, Herts, was part of a team of consultants and contractors who worked on a building project for the Graeae Theatre Company in Hackney, East London. Graeae is a disabled-led theatre company who wanted to turn a historic tram shed into a vibrant, colourful, functional workplace for its diverse range of users.

The resulting building, for which Maleon designed the building services engineering (mechanical, electrical and public health), won the national award for a project up to 2,000m2 at the BCO awards who aim to recognise top quality design and functionality.

Maleon’s Associate Director Matthew Lubbock explained: “From the start it was clear that the scheme would be very different from some of the more typical projects we work on. The Client and Architect had a very clear vision of the way the space needed to operate and our challenge was to enable this vision whilst not overburdening the project with cost and also the Client with over complicated systems. We therefore aimed to keep the services functional, effective and straightforward to operate and maintain.

One of the bigger challenges was the fact that due to planning restrictions the building had no plant space externally and this combined with its immediate neighbours being an apartment block, meant plant location would be critical. To overcome this we designed a plant enclosure within the roof space, blending this with the lantern type roof structure. All the heat rejection plant was then sealed and acoustically treated to overcome noise emissions.”

The project was delivered on time and on budget, by the project team which incorporated Artillery (Architects and Project Managers), BA Partnership (Quantity Surveyor and CDMC), Paragon Management (Main Contractor). It took eight months to complete and the judges were particularly impressed with how the volume of the original structure was optimised and the sustainability of the entire project.

Judith Kilvington of Graeae was thrilled her theatre was a national winner and added: “Maleon provided a sensitive heating and lighting system which, crucially for us, can be adjusted quickly and easily according to individual requirements and different zones in the building. As our M&E Engineers they worked with us creatively to hide the plant room in redundant roof space and pipes behind a beautifully curved ceiling. It’s been great working with such a great team!”

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