Onoffice magazine

What makes an office building green? By most standards, it would be energy efficient and have features like ground source heating and cooling, photovoltaic panels and rainwater harvesting. It would probably boast top marks from a sustainability assessment body like BREEAM or LEED. But there is a new, quite literal, facet to the “green” trend emerging; architecture with luxuriant plant life embedded into the design. The latest built example is 18 Kowloon East in Hong Kong, which was completed late…

Until recently, the land adjoining St George's Cathedral in Southwark was a tarmac car park. The site’s original terraced houses were levelled during the war but, in an apt move, the Catholic Overseas Development Agency (CAFOD) has now built its headquarters there, creating a tidy little Catholic settlement in south London. Guided by principles of “living simply”, CAFOD drafted eco-warriors Black Architecture to design Romero House – an office building that adheres to a triple-pronged code of sustainable development: economic, social and…