Behind The Scenes – Q&A with Scott Smith, Head of Sustainability, Dar, London.

Scott shares how 150 Holborn addresses Sidara’s vision of net-zero and sustainability, what was involved in meeting those targets, and the ongoing work required in maintaining them.

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Hello, Scott. Please can you explain what your role at Dar (London) involves?

Back in 2008/9, I was a Director of a specialised Engineering Consultancy, PHA Consult, which provided innovative, green, and sustainable solutions to projects around the world. One of our clients was Dar, and I became friends with some of the directors in the Middle East and in London.

After Fosters + Partners bought PHA in 2012, I kept in touch with my friends at Dar. Then, after my two year contract with Fosters ended, Dar asked me to set up the Specialist Sustainability Team in London.

So, I’ve worked at Dar for 10 years on sustainable engineering, infrastructure, frameworks, and metrics for master plans for Dar’s clients in the MENA region. My team has trained assessors and accredited professionals in both BREEAM and LEED (the US equivalent of BREEAM). As a certified BREEAM office we also work closely with our sister company, Introba, providing the BREEAM certifications for their bids and projects.

 

Could you talk us through your contribution to the design and delivery of 150 Holborn?

I was the design BREEAM accredited professional working alongside Ben Pratt, Dar’s BREEAM assessor, and I was also the lead assessor for 150 Holborn. My role was to report and review the design process throughout, at each RIBA stage, to ensure we met all the credits we were targeting to achieve BREEAM Outstanding for the design.

So, that entailed having discussions with design team members, explaining what was required, what reporting was needed, what design evidence they needed to provide to Ben so that he could collate all that information, and then upload it to the BRE to get design certification.

When we went into construction, I liaised with the main contractor, McLaren, as the design progressed to answer questions and make sure they were providing the right information. And when we found we couldn’t meet certain aspects of the design, we reviewed what we needed to do to keep the credits to stay on track to meet our target of Outstanding Post-Construction.

We’ve had confirmation from the BRE that we’ve achieved a BREEAM Outstanding Post-Construction score of 86.7% for the Retail units, which is fantastic news. We’re due to submit the final evidence for the Commercial element shortly and are targeting a score of 97.21% for that part.

 

Were there any key challenges you faced in delivering sustainable certification at 150? You mentioned sometimes things in the design weren’t so feasible when it came to construction, for example.

Yes. Obviously in any construction project, even the best designs sometimes don’t go to plan. So you have to look again and revise. I think one of the most challenging aspects was – and still is – to push the design team and the contractor to achieve the highest standards where BREEAM is concerned.

So, you can design and build something that’s very sustainable, but then it’s about going the extra mile and gathering the evidence and data so you can report that information properly to the certification body.

When you’re doing sustainable certification, you’re always trying to push the design team and contractor to prove what they’ve done is really good.

 

Rather like quality assurance ISO certification? Where you have to document everything and show the evidence.

Yes. And the worst bit is sitting down with everyone and having to keep asking them where all the information we need to prove it to us. You know it’s most likely there, it’s just got to be collated properly.

 

Does this sustainability evidence have an impact on buildings insurance, for example?

Oh, absolutely, yes, it does. Depending on the insurance you go with, the higher the certification the better and the lower premiums you have to pay. But again, you have to demonstrate that you can prove it. I mean we, Sidara, can say that 150 Holborn is a sustainable building, but the only way to prove it is to have a certificate vetted by an independent third party that says, yes, that’s right, this is a very sustainable building.

 

What were you most proud of during the whole process? Of course, some of it’s still ongoing, but for now, what are you most proud of?

Back in the early days of the design, there were a lot of questions about the rainwater harvesting and greywater systems and whether they were really needed. And even though it was a planning requirement from Camden Council that we had to have these systems, their wording was such that if you could show why you didn’t really want to do it – that it cost too much, for example – the planners would accept you leaving it out.

So we fought that and said, No, this is something we require. We had a lot of discussions with the engineers during the design phase, to show that it’s really something to have a greywater system and a water-efficient building when you’re in a constrained urban environment.

We don’t have the option of open spaces and landscapes here, so our building had to meet different criteria. The thermal performance isn’t as high as it could have been with a totally differently designed building. But as a functioning headquarters for Sidara, it needed to be open plan, and that restricted us in a lot of aspects.

Water efficiency isn’t normally the one you’d really want to push in a sustainable design in the London area, it’s normally more about energy efficiency. But as we weren’t really able to do that, my team really pushed for the rainwater and greywater harvesting system back in the early days. And it’s been incorporated, is working, and we’re very water efficient as a result of that.

 

Would you say there were compromises made, or compromises suggested that you were able to push back against?

With the building being where it is and the requirements of a headquarters in the middle of London, we were restricted in terms of having really elaborate HVAC systems. Or ground source heat pumps because we don’t have the building footprint to accommodate them. And we didn’t have the space to put in chilled beams and passive systems either.

You know, we’re in a very compact urban environment with a busy side street and front, which doesn’t lend itself to natural ventilation. We’ve created a garden on the roof for some compensation, but as far as the actual building is concerned, we’re pretty much constrained.

But it was almost – and I hate to say it – a fait accompli in some aspects, in terms of sustainable design and the sustainable aspects of this building. And we had to make some compromises based on our location.

So, for our sustainability piece, we had to push all the other avenues that most people working towards a BREEAM or a LEED certification probably wouldn’t go down.

We ensured all the materials were very sustainable, we did an in depth, embodied carbon analysis to show the carbon life cycle of the building, and we did a lot of energy performance analysis including PVs on the roof.

Basically, we went for every available credit we possibly could, and fought tooth and nail throughout the whole design and construction process to achieve them so we could get the highest Outstanding Post-Construction certification for the building.

 

Are there any lessons learned or takeaways for clients and future projects?

It’s almost always the same lesson that we learn time and time again, that it would be really good to get the whole design team engaged from day one. But you know the reality is people leave, different people come in who don’t really understand all the sustainability aspects, and then they leave just as they’re getting to grips with it.

A case in point was when the contractor brought their own sustainability team to look over the BREEAM requirements, and it all started well. But then that team left and no-one picked it up again for a while. And when they did, they were familiar with BREEAM, which is the typical sustainable certification in the UK, but couldn’t get to grips with LEED certification, which they thought was American, didn’t make sense, and was too foreign for them.

And we had to say, No, if you read the manual you’ll see it doesn’t say it has to be American standards, you can work out the same credit with the UK BREEAM standards. So, there were a lot of meetings and back and forth, trying to get the contractor to engage with the material. Eventually some of them did and some of them didn’t.

But saying that, our building is a Schneider Electric smart building. We chose Schneider as our principal control specialist as they’re so good.

Earlier this year I had a tour of their LEED Platinum office building in Grenoble, France, and it was absolutely fantastic. I spoke to the man in charge of obtaining that certification – it took them 4 years to achieve it on this super sustainable building because they had similar problems as us.

For them, it was the LEED US certification system and their contractor had to engage with, convert it into French standards, and then provide the necessary information.

Apparently, there was a lot of screaming and tearing of hair.

So, for us, 21/2 years to certify a normal LEED building in the UK doesn’t seem so long.

 

Any closing thoughts on the certification process?

As far as 150 Holborn is concerned, we have the Outstanding Design certification, the Outstanding Post-Construction certification for the Retail element, and we will get the Outstanding Post-Construction certification for the Commercial element. So, at this point in time, it’s probably the smartest, most high tech building in London.

But as far as sustainability goes, we’re one of the jewels in London’s crown of office headquarter buildings.

You know, when you’re actually designing and constructing a building, there are lots of different things coming in and lots of constraints, it’s really quite an achievement to get as far as we have with this build.

 

This is a living, breathing, evolving building as well, isn’t it? We’ve moved in and 18 months on we’re arriving into our ‘Day 2’.

Yes, exactly so. It’s a good building. It’s a lovely place to work. The facilities for having outside people come in for meetings and for running conferences are really top notch. And you know, it’s a good home for all of our Sidara brands in London.