The Black & White Building’s design is a hybrid structure that comprises a beech laminated veneer lumber (LVL) frame with CLT slabs and core. The simplicity of this fully engineered timber office building belies its groundbreaking innovation. Setting a powerful sustainable agenda with minimum embodied carbon, material use has been optimised.
Internally, there are no structural partition walls and the building’s mechanical, electrical, and plumbing components have been installed in a way that minimizes visual intrusion. The state-of-the-art timber structure is framed by a glazed curtain wall and solar shading is provided by means of vertical timber louvres. The arrangement and form of the louvres is determined by a parametric model that simulates the movement and impact of the sun against the building’s facade.
The seven story structure demonstrates the viability of timber as an alternative construction material to concrete and steel. The height restriction on the Black & White Building was due to the context in which it was placed.
In The Black & White Building, we find an excellent example of the ways in which carbon-based design can result in modest and unobtrusive design, leaving room for the user’s self-expression.
The building has an entirely demountable structure — everything is screwed or bolted together. It is also completely adjustable and adaptable, having the potential to add new staircases and walls, or to change the cladding.
Kirsten Haggart, Associate Director at Waugh Thistleton Architects
Kirsten trained as an architect at Nottingham University and the Architecture School in Aarhus, Denmark. With over 20 years of design experience working across sectors, Kirsten’s strength lies in designing site sensitive developments through the management of stakeholders and engagement with collaborators, successfully navigating public consultation and statutory authorities to pilot proposals through the planning process.
Throughout her career Kirsten has developed projects and concepts that push boundaries and change mindsets. From the pioneering Murray Grove, which altered the global perception of how CLT should be used, to MultiPly, a carbon neutral timber pavilion for the V&A Museum which demonstrates how engineered timber structures can contribute to the circular economy, her work challenges the status quo. Most recently Kirsten has developed the visionary concept of Trenezia a zero carbon community of 1,600 homes and a cultural hub built over the lake in Bergen.