Embedding fire safety
Timber is a sustainable but also combustible material, and current building and fire safety standards are not always sufficient to provide adequate fire safety design guidance for larger buildings with a timber structure. For an exposed structure such as Workstack, it is crucial to implement a fire safety strategy that addresses material-specific considerations. Providing oversight from design through construction to completion, we drew on our long history and global experience in designing mass timber buildings as well as extensive experiments and research of the fire behaviour in compartments constructed from mass timber, and close collaboration with stakeholders such as Building Control and the London Fire Brigade, for its development.
Turning each space into a separate fire resisting enclosure divided by the CLT walls and floors, compartmentation is one of the building’s key fire safety features. The strategy is framed on multi-layered fire protection measures such as a smoke ventilation system with bespoke performance criteria and enhanced firefighter access to enable rapid intervention, both from the outside and the inside. The design carefully considered and controlled the location and extent to which combustible materials are exposed and set stringent fire safety performance criteria for the CLT panels, the structural connections, and other systems that need to interface with the CLT panels, such as fire doors, fire dampers and encapsulation.
Bringing industrial spaces back to the heart of the city
Industrial spaces have been traditionally seen as unattractive, poorly designed and incompatible with residential neighbourhoods. As a result, many industrial sites have been redeveloped for residential use, putting pressure on companies to move away from our urban areas and increasing the scarcity of manufacturing zones and affordable workspaces for small businesses. Coupled with rising land and rent costs, this trend has become a key challenge for industry, and especially for companies located in big cities like London.
Granted Good Growth funding from the Greater London Authority (GLA), which supports regeneration of town centres and high streets, WorkStack has become an exemplar of light industrial developments for London. Reaching a density of 428 employees per hectare, which is over four times higher than neighbouring properties, it will provide local job opportunities for approximately 60 people in the Charlton Riverside area. This project demonstrates that industrial workspaces can bring visually attractive buildings to our high street, supporting start-ups and small companies to move to the capital while creating new job opportunities.