Saint-Gobain Glass assists BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating for Leeds landmark

10 Wellington Place is an outstanding new contemporary building located at the heart of the Leeds business hub. The building provides a stunning vista across the city whilst providing accommodation for companies and organisations seeking a prestigious and distinctive landmark address.

High performance glass supplied by Saint-Gobain gives the building its striking form through the impressive floor to ceiling glazing that provides occupiers and visitors with an unrivalled platform through which to overlook the city skyline and is key to promoting the project as a landmark building. The building features an innovative exterior design and the glass facade helps create light and airy interior spaces in which people can work, shop and relax comfortably. Saint-Gobain helped to create the glass façade design and its modern exterior to create a contrast against the existing stone architecture in the area.

Saint-Gobain Glass products were chosen over and above other glass alternatives in the specification due to the architect requiring a very specific amount of solar gain and light reflection in the glass façade. Aesthetically, the high performance glazing perfectly complimented the building with its neutral appearance.

Saint-Gobain Glass has extensive green credentials and is the first and only company of its kind to conduct Life Cycle Assessments for its products. 10 Wellington Place achieved a BREEAM Excellent-rating with Saint-Gobain Glass contributing towards this in two areas: the company’s high performance glass coatings that reduced solar gain up to 77% and therefore reduced the building’s dependence upon air conditioning; and the Life Cycle Assessment which traces the product’s life cycle from raw materials to the recycling of used glass.

Saint-Gobain Glass has an excellent technical specification team that is able to provide technical support and calculate solutions for various glazing problems at the very early stages of any project. For 10 Wellington Place the company worked closely with the architect, CJCT, and also the highly experienced Essex based glazing company Village Glass.

10 Wellington Place had a number of technical challenges to overcome, firstly due to its location. The building was susceptible to a high velocity of wind, and as it also featured large floor to ceiling glazing, it was particularly important that the glazing could withstand these varying degrees of wind pressure. Secondly, from an interior aspect, the floor to ceiling glazing had to be able to withstand potential impact through its use in ‘high traffic areas’. Saint-Gobain Glass provided extensive wind and barrier loading calculations, along with photometric data to help overcome the issues and ensure that the correct glazing was specified and installed.

The completion of 10 Wellington Place now provides a springboard for the further development of the area and the building’s design aesthetics will be echoed in the other developments that are planned. The regeneration scheme includes a further 106,000 ft² of office space at 3 Wellington Place, the next building to be developed; 155,000 ft² at 4 Wellington Place and a further 59,000 ft² at 5 Wellington Place. It is part of a 14-phase development which will offer a total of 1.5 million square feet of commercial, retail, leisure and residential space in the centre of Leeds, with Saint-Gobain Glass at the heart of these additional project development stages.