Rainwater is collected from the roof, basins and showers to service vacuum flush toilets, and ceilings are covered in 2.5 million polished aluminium ‘petals’ that regulate acoustics, as well as temperature and light. A 210-metre bronze ramp winds through six floors of the open-plan office furnished with sit-stand desks, encouraging staff to walk rather than use the lift and perhaps meet a colleague on the way. When the Royal Institute of British Architects awarded the building its prestigious Stirling Prize in 2018, then-president Ben Derbyshire said the scheme had “not just raised the bar for office design and city planning, but smashed the ceiling”. Kingspan was commissioned to create a bespoke American red oak- topped flooring system that would meet the demands of the design and its sustainability targets. The starting point was the existing TLM6 access floor system, which creates an accessible void for services beneath. But due to the building's open floor plate, the design called for much larger, 576 x 1334mm panels than the standard 600 x 600mm dimensions of the product, and with this increase in scale came fragility – presenting the team with its first opportunity to innovate. After rigorous testing, the technicians eschewed the typical solution of bonding timber veneers onto the boards altogether. Instead, they settled on using two separate systems – using the standard modular TLM26 access floor system below a newly-developed magnetised timber covering. “It provided everything the designers and client wanted – a timber floor finish with a homogenous aesthetic, ease of access into the floor void, ease of replacement in the event of damage and a reduction in construction phase and long-term waste,” says Devereux. Some 34,000 square metres of this Attiro magnet-backed engineered timber overlay was laid over 37,000 square metres of the TLM26 access floor system to create floors throughout the building. On-site cutting of the materials – all FSC certified – meant offcuts could be used elsewhere in the project, reducing waste in the installation process. “If one timber stave on a pre-bonded panel was damaged, 0.77 square metres of timber plus the panel would have to be replaced and disposed, whereas with the magnetic Attiro only 0.23 square metres would have to be replaced,” says Devereux. The team needed to ‘think outside the box’ to create a more robust panel that would reduce waste through damage during installation and cost less to replace because of wear and tear in the future. 184
Table of contents