Thames Valley office to be accredited for wellness
Suzanne Lovell
An office building, likely to be the first in the UK to be accredited for wellness, was unveiled to Thames Valley property professionals on Tuesday (October 10).
Members of our own networking group, FTC West of London, not only got a glimpse of the building and roof terrace at the 115,000 sq ft Landid and Brockton Capital development in Slough, but heard how the mental health of occupiers’ employees was to take a central role in the building’s culture.
Landid director, Chris Hiatt told guests the developer was working with US-based Wellness Institute, promoting health in the workplace and had now begun a process to become the first to gain accreditation from the organisation.
He said: “We’ve had sustainability and BREEAM ratings. This will be the next thing to come along the line.
“We’ve been talking to our corporate clients - doing a bit of research – and mindfulness and physical fitness is really important.
“It boosts productivity and reduces absenteeism. People have less chronic illnesses if you create the right environment so our building ticks lots of boxes.
“We are going through a research-led initiative so a three-month process is just kicking off. Hopefully by Christmas we will have certification and we will be the first in the UK. We are pushing really hard to do that.
“All the major landlords in central London have registered (with the institute) so they’’ll be doing it in central London but our building is further down the line so I’m hoping we will be six month ahead of everybody else.”
The building is one of five developments Landid took on along the western corridor. Others include Thames Tower, One Valpy in Reading, the Charter Building in Uxbridge and One Queen Caroline Street, Hammersmith.
Landid’s philosophy was around six Cs: Connectivity, Crossrail, centrality, character, commerciality and creativity.
Architect, Bill Soper from tp bennett, said the Porter Building, which was made to have a warehouse feel, with exposed steelwork, lighting that shone upwards to reflect off the ceiling and air conditioning coming upward from the floor, had to be modern but reflect Slough’s industrial origins.
He added: “We tried to take the warehouse, the old industrial aesthetic and come up with a timeless, and yet modern, interpretation of that.”
Earlier Cllr Zaffar Ajaib highlighted the major schemes in the Slough pipeline including around 1,400 homes amid a mixed use scheme on the former TVU site; hotels, residential and retail on the former library site and the redevelopment of the Queensmere Observatory shopping centre.
As an interim measure there will be efforts to create pop up space for start ups and attract brands to Slough over the next six to 12 months.
llr Ajaib added: “To make all that happen we have restructured the council, we are introducing a new directorate for regeneration. We have appointed Joe Carter so Joe will be heading up the new directorate.
“The idea behind that is we have any sort of delays in big projects coming forward, we can be fully focused, we’ll have enough resources to put everything behind it and to make sure everything is delivered on time and is the right quality.”
Source: Thames Valley Property No 88 (tvproperty.co.uk)
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