Bloomberg sets new standard in sustainability
Bloomberg’s new London headquarters has been billed as the most sustainable office building in the world. The new office will be nine stories high and has 1.1m sq ft of office space. It will be home to 4,000 employees.
The building makes a strong contemporary design statement on the outside but inside it boasts many environmentally friendly features that earned it an ‘outstanding’ BREEAM rating. It scored 98.5% on BREEAM’s assessment rating – the highest design-stage score ever achieved for a major office development.
This building is special in that it was designed to respond to the building’s external environment and adapt to its occupancy patterns. Many of these features are first of their kind.
Water savings were a priority
A key element in the search for sustainability was the inclusion of modern integrated systems for the use of water. The new building environmental strategies deliver a 73% saving in water consumption and a 35% saving in energy consumption and associated CO2 emissions.
Aquality had a central role in providing those solutions
The building uses a combination of non-potable water strategies to achieve that goal. As well as harvesting rainwater, the systems recycle the greywater from showers and wash hand basins to supply the vacuum toilets in the building.
Cooling tower bleed off water is cleaned and recirculated to supply the cooling towers with part of the bleed off discharge used as auxiliary supply to the combined water recycling system. This ensures that no mains water will be used to flush the toilets.
This integrated design makes sure that all the non-potable water sources are being used most effectively in combination with vacuum drainage system and water efficient appliances.
Aquality is proud to have supported the SWECO design since 2011.
During the construction phase Aquality worked closely with Michael J Lonsdale supplying the rainwater harvesting and greywater recycling systems for this iconic and rather special building.
‘”The design of the new Bloomberg London offices was an inspiring challenge! The client was absolutely committed to push out barriers and create a modern icon of sustainability. Identical to previous projects, working with Aquality was a pleasure, and their professional approach and vast experience in the field of water management was fully utilised with outstanding results.” – Kris Wojcik, SWECO
