Key building services components for Heron Tower, the new landmark building in the City of London, have been fabricated by Pipe Center.
Topping 232m, Heron Tower is now the tallest building in the City of London square mile and designed as a world-class financial complex.
The 46-storey building is the centre-piece of the Heron Plaza development, and is among the most sustainable and efficient in the world, with a BREEAM rating of “excellent”.
Pipe Center’s specialist fabrication facility at West Horndon produced riser pipework, plant room services, glycol pipework and additional piped services to the “village” plant rooms serving the building’s individual hubs.
The tower is structured as a series of 11 "villages" over three floors, each with a triple height atrium. The innovative off-set services core at the heart of each village creates expansive and flexible office spaces.
Sustainable design features include the use of photovoltaic cells and triple-skin glazing which, combined with other solar shading methods, reduces solar gain by 45 per cent. Pipe Center’s glycol pipework supports the building’s high efficiency cooling system, based on ice storage.
In the innovative approach, each of the separate village zones has its own plant room and services, giving occupants complete control over the system serving their floors and atrium – ensuring a highly efficient and controllable indoor environment.
Steven Evans, development director for Heron Tower, said: “Our focus has been on developing a building which will be one of the most advanced buildings in the world, setting a global benchmark for quality in commercial office space.
“Environmental issues are increasingly high on the corporate agenda and sustainability has become a central factor in building design. Heron Tower has met this challenge head on, employing a variety of environmentally conscious strategies.”