30 January 2023

BauMont and YardNine appoint Mace as contractor on Edenica at 100 Fetter Lane

BauMont Real Estate Capital and YardNine have appointed Mace the international construction and consultancy firm to deliver Edenica, the forthcoming 95,000 sq ft Grade A office and retail development at 100 Fetter Lane in Central London.which recently won ‘Best Net Zero Project’ at the Consultancy and Engineering Awards.

Planning consent for the former offices of DAC Beachcroft and the White Swan pub at 108 Fetter Lane includes the demolition of the existing buildings and the delivery of a new 12-storey development, roof gardens, new pedestrian route and pocket square at ground level, as well as ancillary cycle parking. The White Swan will be retained and relocated to the north-east corner of the site. Delivery for the new scheme is targeted for Q4 2024.

The new development, designed by Fletcher Priest Architects will target the highest environmental standards of BREEAM Outstanding, as well as WiredScore, SmartScore and WELL certifications. Sustainability, technology and wellbeing are extensively incorporated into the design. This includes generous planted terraces to encourage biodiversity and provide significant external breakout space, facilities to encourage active modes of travel, and high-performance 100% electric building services developed with Waterman Group to ensure that the building achieves Net Zero carbon emissions in use.
In addition, Edenica will be the first scheme within the City of London to be designed as a ‘storage bank’ where materials are held for future reuse, through the use of ‘Materials Passports’. Materials Passports are digital data sets that describe characteristics of materials and components in products and systems, giving them value for present use, recovery and future reuse.
Occupiers will benefit from easy access to Elizabeth Line, Thameslink and London Underground services via Farringdon, City Thameslink and Chancery Lane stations, with a diverse range of cultural, leisure, retail and educational amenities nearby.

Campbell MacDougall, Director of YardNine said: “This is an important milestone in the delivery of Edenica and we are looking forward to working closely with Mace to bring forward this best-in-class office development in the centre of London.”

Ged Simmonds, Managing Director for Offices, Construct, at Mace, said: “We are excited to take on the delivery of such an ambitious development, raising the bar on sustainability through the use of Materials Passports, as well as smart technology to enhance occupier wellbeing.”

11 January 2023

Materials passports are critical step towards circular economy

A system to record product data for later reuse is being trialled on a live building project in move to create a sustainability database.

An office construction job in London has become a crucial testbed for capturing data on building materials for circular reuse, which could result in a UK-wide database and marketplace for reused products.

The 94,000ft2 Edenica development in the City of London, designed by Fletcher Priest Architects, is pioneering the development of materials passports – digital datasets that describe characteristics of materials, products and components, giving them value during maintenance, recovery and future reuse.

The initiative forms part of the EU project CIRCuIT and involves multidisciplinary consultancy Waterman Group, project manager Third London Wall, and partners including BRE and City of London.

Waterman developed a procurement pathway on Edenica to ensure that key characteristics of building materials are captured and held in a centralised database. This will be used to provide reports on maintenance and potential future reuse during the life of the building and at end of life.

The consultancy is developing a protocol to standardise the process for producing and reporting materials passports, which would be adopted as best practice for responsible development. It also plans to work with policy makers to produce a standardised template for materials passports to apply to all new products.

The project is a critical step in the creation of a functioning circular economy, explains Anastasia Stella at Waterman Building Services who led its development on Edenica: ‘Until now, there have been no tools to allow the creation of materials passports and no standardised framework is applied in the UK,’ she said. ‘We had to start from scratch, defining what they should include, what form they should take, how to organise the information in the database on different levels, and finally, how to use them and update them throughout the building lifecycle.’

Information included in materials passports for Edenica will derive from construction contractors, co-ordinated by main contractor Mace, and based on BIM models, contractors’ records, product specifications and certificates etc.

‘Mace has bought into the concept and will work with us to ensure that as we buy materials and components they are all logged,’ said Mark Terndrup, managing director of building services at Waterman Group. ‘It’s about discipline and starting from procurement, making sure you are clear on all the data you need at the outset of the contract. We’ve been diligent in writing specifications for all this in the tender process so that Mace fully understands the information they have to supply.’

The live project will support the development of an online platform, called Circuland, where materials passports are created, viewed and updated, at both individual building development and city levels.

The structure of the database will follow the RICS NRM classification system level 2 sub-elements, which allows information from materials passports to be interlinked with post-completion circular economy statements and post-construction whole life carbon assessments.

The platform will also feature an online materials stock database/marketplace for the UK, where materials passports for reusable materials are added by demolition contractors when buildings are slated for refurbishment or demolition. These can then be sourced by construction teams planning new projects. ‘The vision is a bit like an Amazon solution with depots for materials for reuse around the UK,’ says Terndrup.

The Edenica development and its associated materials passport database is scheduled for completion in summer 2024.

Words: Stephen Cousins, The RIBA Journal.