Currently the tallest mass timber building in central London, The Black & White Building is one of only a handful of buildings in the city to feature both a timber structure and timber facade. The new six-storey office building features a Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) and Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) frame with a timber curtain wall facade and external timber shading fins. The project pushes the boundaries of sustainable workplace design, showcasing what can be achieved and realised with timber construction.
This exemplar timber frame building promotes the use of timber throughout and demonstrates its potential in commercial buildings.
The project boasts impressive sustainability credentials due to timber construction's inherent advantages. By carefully sourcing sustainable engineered timber, and minimising concrete (except for the subterranean level), embodied carbon for the building’s entire superstructure is reduced by almost a third compared to a concrete alternative.
Circularity was a key consideration, in both the passive design features and construction – ensuring that the building can be disassembled, and the materials can be recovered and reused.