The just opened Black & White Building wears its timber heart on its sleeve.
At 17.8m tall, the new seven-storey office tower in Shoreditch is Central London’s tallest timber-based building. Designed by Waugh Thistleton Architects (WTA) for client’s workspace specialist TOG, it features a core in cross-laminated timber (CLT), a structural frame comprising beech LVL columns and beams and CLT floor and wall panels and a glulam-framed glazed curtain wall. Combined, this structure comprises 1,330m3 of timber, storing 1,014.7 tonnes of C02 and giving a carbon emission saving over an equivalent concrete build of 1,083 tonnes or 37%.
But the designers’ commitment to using timber, due to its unique combination of technical and environmental performance, didn’t stop there. It also extends to – and is clearly expressed in – the Black & White Building’s innovative and highly technically specified, solar shading system. This is an external framework of louvres made in thermo-treated US tulipwood from Northland Forest Products.
Tulipwood has not previously been widely used in thermo-treated form. But the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC), which played a technical advisory role to WTA, supported trials of the material, demonstrating its strength, stability and durability in exterior use. It also showed its suitability for fire retardant treatment. Moreover, WTA became familiar with the material’s performance as the designer of AHEC’s earlier Multiply tulipwood structural showcase.
The louvres have a high-quality finish and did not need sanding. Nor did they require preservative treatment. They won’t need maintenance either and are designed to be demountable and re-purposed at the end of the structure’s life.
The façade, explained AHEC European director David Venables, further enhances the building’s sustainability credentials and not just by featuring timber.
“The louvres massively reduce the building’s energy consumption by protecting the interior from solar gain,” he said. “They also minimise the amount of unrecyclable solar coating needed to protect the windows, ultimately reducing landfill.”
This edition includes a more detailed report on the Black & White Building (pp51-54), and interviews with the architects, client and interior designers follow in the next TTJ.
