Foyles' new flagship bookstore on Charing Cross Road has won the BREEAM 2015 retail award as the highest scoring retail fit-out of the year with an impressive score of 73.4%, reports Mace.
The project involved in the renovation of the dilapidated Saint Martin’s College into a light and stylish 37,000 sq. ft. bookshop, which shall be the largest bookstore to be built in the UK this century.
The building was designed with sustainability as a high priority. This included reducing the energy consumption in the building through thermally upgrading the retained façade, installing LED lighting and low carbon air source heat pumps. Additionally grey-water recycling, green roofs, and PV panels were integrated into the development to further boost its sustainability credentials.
Harrison Keating and Steve Kellett championed site sustainability management, including BREEAM and Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH) certification. The construction process saw 99% of all timber FSC certified, 97% of all materials sustainably sourced and 95% of waste diverted from landfill.
The team also scored 41 in the Considerate Constructors Scheme (CCS) assessment, which further helps towards achieving an 'excellent' BREEAM rating. Recognising the key issues at the outset of the project provided opportunities to design in solutions which reduced the environmental impact of the building. The team was committed to going beyond best practise as both a considerate constructor and through its efforts to minimise construction site impacts, aided by bespoke monitoring tools, and their ISO14001 management system compliance.
The BREEAM assessment board commented: “The flagship store for Foyles is an exemplar retail store that has been built carefully and considerately using materials that are low polluting, have low embodied energy and are responsibly sourced.”
Mace Business Unit Director Ged Simmonds commented: "The team delivered a fantastic result on a very challenging refurbishment project. I am delighted that this has recognised with such a prestigious award.