24/10/2011 - Thomas Vale Handover 10 Woodcock Street

Birmingham City Council opened the doors of 10 Woodcock Street, the new flagship workplace, to local school children and dignitaries yesterday. The event marked the handover of the building from Thomas Vale Construction to Birmingham City Council and was commemorated with the unveiling of two school time capsules and an event, hosted by the Lord Mayor, in the evening.

10 Woodcock Street, located next to Aston University, will support over 3,000 Birmingham City Council employees. The building’s design has been built on the success of the Council’s workplaces at 1 Lancaster Circus and New Aston House and recognised the need to achieve value for money whilst providing an enhanced working environment and improved customer service for the citizens of Birmingham. The new workplace consists of 22,000 m2 of floor space over five floors.

Councillor Randal Brew, Cabinet Member for Finance, said, “10 Woodcock Street is a fantastic example of how a Local Authority can provide a modern and enhanced working environment whilst making substantial savings and provide a workplace that supports employees to deliver improved services. This is a fantastic achievement for Birmingham City Council and one which sets a new standard for local government.”

The celebration involved local children from Chilwell Croft Primary School and Perry Beeches Secondary School who unveiled their history time capsules. The first time capsule was buried in 2010 by Chilwell Croft school children in the foundations of the building and is marked by a plaque in the main reception area. The second is an interactive time capsule, supplied by Thomas Vale Construction and Service Birmingham and located within a post box in the main reception area. The children of Perry Beeches School visited Birmingham City University’s School of Jewellery, Jaguar Land Rover and The Council House to research the history of Birmingham.

10 Woodcock Street was designed by local architects Associated Architects and the construction of the building was delivered by midlands based Thomas Vale Construction, as part of the Birmingham Construction Partnership and managed by Urban Design.

The building has been designed with sustainability in mind and will achieve an `Excellent` BREEAM rating. Several sustainable solutions, have been incorporated into the project such as rainwater harvesting and photo-voltaic panels on the roof to generate electricity. A ‘brown roof’ was created to provide a habitat for wildlife and to assist in the insulation of the building. Over 90% of construction waste was recycled on the project which has greatly helped the Council to reduce its carbon footprint and reduce the Council’s energy bills, fantastic news for the tax payers of Birmingham.

Paul Clarke, Divisional Director, Thomas Vale Construction said,” Thomas Vale Construction is absolutely delighted to complete the prestigious Woodcock Street project and handover the facility to Birmingham City Council. The project has delivered a highly sustainable and flexible facility which has already achieved Construction Excellence demonstration project status, with many innovative features designed and incorporated into the scheme.

"The success of the project is testimony to the partnership approach with Birmingham City Council and Thomas Vale Construction and our integrated collaborative working techniques that were fully adopted by the entire project delivery team from the outset. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our partners for their dedication and commitment to deliver this landmark project”

The building was designed with sustainability in mind and is on target to achieve an ’Excellent’ BREEAM rating. Several sustainable solutions have been incorporated into the project including rainwater harvesting, and photo-voltaic panels on the roof to generate electricity.

The installation of a brown roof was also created to provide a wildlife habitat, also assisting in the insulation of the building together with an effective waste management system during construction. The innovative solutions are helping the council to reduce its carbon footprint and reduce energy bills.

The new workplace has been developed as part of the Working for the Future programme and will help ensure the council delivers over £100m of savings during the 25 years of the programme.

Birmingham City Council employees will start to move into the new workplace on a phased basis from November 2011 with the building being fully occupied in late 2012.

FAST FACTS

• 10 Woodcock Street is the council’s biggest office construction in over 100 years.
• 10 Woodcock Street will be home to 2,200 workstations and 3,000 people.
• It has taken 5,080 hours to build in total and 1,522 workers to build it.
• 3,700 cubic metres of concrete used in total to complete the building.
• Approximately 384,000m of network cabling was used to complete the building’s IT network.
• Approx 880,000 site management & construction workers man hours spent on constructing Woodcock Street offices
• 106 working weeks from start to finish
• 42 different trade specialists employed by Thomas Vale Construction
• 1,100 tonnes of steel used in the frame of the building
• 3,100 tonnes of external wall panels
• Tallest atria is 42m (or 126ft) high from floor level
• Volumes of all four atria is 26,230 cubic metres
• Woodcock Street elevation is just under 100m long
• 22,000 sq m of internal area
• 2,370 workstations
• 61,000 raised floor panels
• 180,000 pedestals (legs) to support the raised floors
• Just under 750,000 screw fixings used to hold down the pedestals
• 88,000 carpet tiles
•  If all the suspended light fittings were put end to end they would stretch 1.5km