Barclays Property Services, hurleypalmerflatt

Enabling change for Barclays

Project:

Barclays Headquarters (BP1), London

Value:

Total Contract: £120 million

BP1, Barclays' new headquarters, was an enabler of change allowing for the consolidation of all Barclays London staff to a place they would be proud to work in. It achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating, incorporated five of the largest atria in Europe and represented the fastest construction for a development of its size.

hurleypalmerflatt provided mechanical and electrical expertise for the 1 million sq ft development, which comprises modular and open plan offices, meeting rooms, an executive floor, a gymnasium, corporate dining and a staff restaurant as well as a central equipment room (data centre) and two future 32,000 sq ft trading floors.

The engineering design solution achieves three core objectives: reliability, resilience and flexibility. Specific elements were pre-engineered, including sprinkler, fire detection sounders, lighting and air-conditioning components, to enable Barclays to partition the space in a number of different ways without any changes or disruption to the services.

Future-proofing was central to the flexibility that the building had to deliver. The engineering solution is sufficiently robust and comprehensive to accommodate one person per 7.5 sq m, more efficient than the BCO guideline of one person per 10 sq m. Substantial future plant space and riser capacity is available to support this growth.

To meet the timeframe, the base-build and fit-out were constructed simultaneously. hurleypalmerflatt, in close collaboration with the project team and the client, undertook full design to Cat B and Cat C while monitoring the shell and core as well as Cat A. Critical plant (UPS, LV Switchgear, critical cooling) was installed for the client's mission critical infrastructure