Roche Headquarters
- Location
- Welwyn Garden City, UK
- Client
- Roche Products Ltd
- Expertise
- Architecture
- Acoustics
- Interior Design
- Landscape Architecture
- Lighting
- Sustainability
- Completion
- 2005
- Size
- 21,800 sq m
- Cost
- $50m
Leading healthcare company Roche unified their workforce into a single headquarters accredited with a BREEAM Excellent status.
Cutting costs and emissions and unifying a workforce under one roof. We worked outwards from a central covered street that gives a focal point to the building. The street connects the open-plan workspaces and includes a restaurant, health and fitness centre and library.
The resulting three-storey building achieved a BREEAM Environmental Performance Index of 10 out of 10 and an 'Excellent' rating. The design uses timber-framed curtain walling, ground-water cooling from boreholes and an ammonia refrigeration plant that is both carbon-neutral and ozone-free.
The lighting design complements and reinforces the architectural intent, providing a comfortable and stimulating workplace. Special emphasis was placed on lighting of key vertical surfaces. Luminaires were selected for their performance, quality and clean design.
Brief
Bring together 1100 employees from separate sites under one roof provide an attractive work environment with a range of facilities achieve high environmental performance ratings
Results
New working environment has boosted productivity BREEAM Environmental Performance Index of ten: rated ‘Excellent’ saved the client enough time and money to build a previously deferred pharmacology block with the same supplier team awards include the British Council of Offices Award (Best of Best) 2006 and the Wood Award (Offsite Awards & Innovation Award) 2006