80 Charlotte Street
Mixed Use
40,000 m2
Developed by Derwent London, and designed by Arup with Make architects, the building was designed to enhance wellbeing and support hybrid working. It includes affordable housing, a new public pocket park, and is the first large-scale all-electric building in London. The building is operationally zero carbon, with Arup as one of the main occupiers.
Part of the existing fabric from the 1960s building was retained and combined with new-build elements. The façade blends old and new, including original brick façades retained along Whitfield Street.
A communal roof terrace offers views across north London and the City. Active design features include visible stairs in the reception and spaces for over 300 bicycles. The reception features a café open to the public and space for occupiers to host events and social activities.
Sustainability
Working closely with Derwent London and Make, Arup engineered 80 Charlotte Street for lean materials use and flexibility, reducing lifecycle emissions.
The building uses air source pumps for heating and cooling, avoiding fossil fuels and advancing progress to net zero. It has one of the largest heat pumps in central London, recovering and reusing waste heat via polyvalent units.
The reception and atria are naturally ventilated, pulling in outside air, and a highly integrated fresh air strategy uses the atrium to distribute fresh air to floors. Electricity on both landlord and tenant sides is to be purchased from ringfenced renewable sources, and 80m2 of solar thermal panels will pre-heat domestic water.
Arup applied future thinking, carrying out an early embodied carbon study to identify opportunities to cut emissions, such as designs for the building to be fully electrical as early as 2009.
The building was almost entirely prefabricated off site, with kits of parts brought to site and connected together – from precast concrete façades to structural elements such as pipework risers and soffits. This upheld quality, while dramatically reducing on site labour, saving construction time and contributing to the project’s industry-leading safety rate
Accreditation / BREEM
New materials were sustainably sourced, including high recycled content and regional procurement, along with waste minimisation and recycling. This all contributed to the building’s BREEAM Excellent rating.
Photo supplied courtesy of Derwent
Sustainability is an increasingly important factor for a multi-campus organisation in Fitzrovia but we can’t do it on our own. To deliver sustainable solutions, we need to work collectively as an area. The Fitzrovia Partnership is making this happen. 
Richard Jackson
Sustainability Director, UCL
