Flexibility The floor plate is flexible to the extent of being tenanted either by a single tenant or by two or three separate tenants . As it happens , Y & R have occupied two thirds of the building space and smaller tenants will occupy the balance . The architects do not design office buildings to be tenant specific . In their experience , tenants come and go but the building remains . Therefore , it has to accommodate a wide range of occupancy choices .
A Green Office Building - Sort Of The Green Office concept is embodied in this building which the architects anticipate will operate
at 50 % of the normal power requirements of a regular office building . The architectural features contributing to this efficiency are the following :
On the north side of the building , the floor slabs extend to 1.5m beyond the window line , forming shelves . These shelves shade the glass curtain wall below , completely eliminating north sun during the summer months . During the winter months , two thirds of the sun is eliminated from the glass surfaces .
Deep projecting vertical fins have been designed as structural elements . They project 2m from the face of the building on the north side . The effect is to exclude west sun over two thirds of the glass façade from 15h30 in the summer months . Between the two shading devices - vertical and horizontal - very little direct sunlight will strike the vision glass .
East and west facing windows on the building have been virtually eliminated . The east and west walls of the building are solid 30 concrete , thus excluding morning and later afternoon sunshine . This will contribute to preserving ambient temperatures within the offices themselves .
On the north and south side of the building , vision glass has been limited to 50 % of the floor to ceiling height . Above the window head , there is solid concrete 230 thick and , below the window sill , is an insulated glass panel comprising 50mm of Isoboard insulation with glass on the outside .
All external windows of the office space are double glazed using insulated performance glass on the inner skin and a tinted glass on the outer skin . This serves a dual purpose - insulation , as well as eliminating the N1 highway noise .
128 The Crescent