Roots in The Sky will be London’s first office building to deliver a rooftop urban forest across 1.4 acres with extensive access for the local community and general public

Roots in The Sky will be London’s first office building to deliver an urban forest rooftop with extensive access for the local community and general public across 1.4 acres. The project will deliver community gardens, a dedicated community barn in the most commercially valuable space in the development, as well as a rooftop restaurant, bar, swimming pool and terraces for the office space below. Set to be one of the largest urban roof gardens in Europe, the building will make a significant contribution to London’s ambitious targets for greening, biodiversity and sustainability.

Fabrix completed the acquisition of the site in Q1 2020 and by Q4 2020 their scheme was granted planning committee approval by London Borough of Southwark, followed by GLA approval in March 2021. It involves the radical reimagining of the former Blackfriars Crown Court as a post-covid workspace, with 385,000 sq ft of contemporary and sustainable office, commercial and community space.

The building will have best in class environmental and wellbeing accreditations including BREEAM Outstanding, WELL Platinum and Wiredscore Platinum. However, the essence of the project and Fabrix’ regard for the environment and locality goes much deeper than this.

The existing 1960s building – a former stationery office and later a Crown Court – provided the starting point to develop an office building with generous volumes and adaptable floor plates of up to 40,000 sq ft. The project team have designed a lightweight hybrid steel and CLT frame, with the ability to support the urban forest and its 1,300 tonnes of soil. Whilst internally, the building’s intuitive environmental strategy not only exceeds the highest sustainability accreditations but seeks to further enhance occupier’s wellbeing with its passive ventilation strategy, openable windows maximising access to fresh air and a full-height feature atrium which facilitates the extraction of waste heat from the building.

The rooftop and building landscaping, designed by landscape design practice Harris Bugg, exceeds the urban forest criteria set out by the United Nations with canopy cover of 23% and over 100 established trees and 10,000 plants, which can only be achieved with 1m+ soil depths creating huge structural loads and technical challenges. As part of the brief Fabrix made it clear the building should create space for nature and not just humans and in a response to this, parts of the roof tree density is so high that it is inaccessible for people. Other technical aspects of the roof are also ground-breaking such as the design of its passive water capture and irrigation system, which will irrigate the rooftop planting on demand. The roof also includes a full length 20m Perspex bottomed swimming pool that will be heated by the buildings waste energy, showing how luxury and sustainability can co-exist.

Roots in The Sky will demonstrate that valuable placemaking can take place through single commercial office buildings rather than just large masterplans. It will show that bringing inspiring new community spaces alongside commercial development is of benefit to the neighbourhood and tenants alike. Often developers will place ‘community space’ in the lowest value areas, but in an unprecedented step Fabrix selected the most commercially valuable area of the scheme to put a community building featuring tea and coffee (honesty box) and a community garden overlooking The Shard. It will bring together the community, public and private areas with spectacular views across London. On top of this Fabrix have committed to dedicating 25,000 sq ft to affordable workspace and a ground floor auditorium with full AV system which will be ‘free to use for a purpose’.

“Our vision for Roots in The Sky is a modern workplace that actively engages with its local surroundings, and helps shape a neighbourhood that is enjoyable, liveable and economically productive. It’s a commercial building that aims to be a ‘good citizen’, offering a genuine place for community uses, contributing to the ongoing regeneration of Bankside and to London’s wider greening targets. This building will be a true vehicle for change and will set a new benchmark for office development, as well as be a beacon representing everything that is great about London.” Clive Nichol, CEO, Fabrix.