May 24, 2016

New standard for building wellbeing launched in US ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Environment, Facilities management, Legal news, Property

If you’re still confused about the proliferation of green building standards worldwide, then brace yourself. A new standard that seeks to measure the wellbeing inducing characteristics of a building has been launched as a counterpart to the WELL Building Standard developed by the Green Building Certification Institute and the International WELL Building Institute. The new standard is called Fitwel, was designed by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the General Services Administration and is overseen by the Centre for Active Design. The standard uses a scorecard that ranks buildings on over 60 criteria such as indoor air quality, fitness facilities and lobby and stairwell design. According to its proponents these criteria apply well-established scientific principles to address seven characteristics of a healthy working environment. The standard is very much a product of the US public sector at this stage and was piloted in 89 federal buildings during 2015. Its full launch is scheduled for next year. Image: Gensler / Hedrich Blessing

May 21, 2016

Flexible working babble + Tall buildings + Engaging workplace design ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Newsletter, Property, Technology, Work&Place, Workplace

In this week’s Newsletter; Matias Rodsevich suggests three performance management must haves; Neil Barnfather flags up a lack of disabled representation at board level; and Dr Daniel Wheatley says work-life balance and flexible working continue to be viewed as a ‘women’s issue’. From the latest issue of Work&Place, Serena Borghero looks at the role of workplace design in employee engagement; Mark Eltringham argues there’s no evolution towards a universally accepted model of workplace design and management culture; and that when it comes to skyscrapers, big and clever are two different things. There’s evidence that London’s Central office market has hit its peak; the British public remains ‘clueless or indifferent’ about the nature of smart cities; and we reveal that graduates prefer digitised workplaces. You can download our Insight Briefing, produced in partnership with Connection, on the boundless office; visit our new events page, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

May 20, 2016

New guide to Level 2 BIM compliance launched ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Facilities management, Legal news, Property, Technology

Anybody who is still confused about Building Information Modelling (there’s a lot of us) and its obligations under new legislation will welcome new free guidance published by the excellent Designing Buildings Wiki created by BRE, CIOB, BSRIA, ICE and others. Since last month, Level 2 BIM has been mandatory on centrally-procured public projects, with far-reaching implications for those involved. Clients, consultants, contractors and suppliers are now required to understand the finer details of the Level 2 process. But the 2016 NBS BIM Survey found 42 percent of respondents were just aware of BIM and 28 percent were not very, or not at all confident in BIM. The new guide aims to take users step-by-step through the Level 2 workflows, from the basics of storing project information to preparing employer’s information requirements. It is open access, meaning anyone in the industry can edit and improve the guide to reflect their experiences of using BIM in practice. It is aligned to Level 2 standard PAS 1192-2 and the 2013 RIBA plan of work.

May 17, 2016

London’s central office market peak driving change for other zones ⁰

by Tobi Crosbie • Cities, Comment, Facilities management, Property

There are plenty of good reasons to believe that London’s Central office market has hit its peak. Rents are at an all-time high in the majority of core office locations and whilst the start of 2016 has seen rents rise, there is certainly a clear steadying of the pace. According to our own data, the Landlord’s quoted rents for offices across the entire Central London market. Core offices such as Mayfair and St James’s have reached levels of £150 per square foot (pfs) in Q1 2016 compared with £120 per square foot in Q1 2015 a rise of 25 percent in 12 months. That does sound excessive, until this is compared with the rises seen East of the city in so called ‘fringe markets’ of Clerkenwell, Old Street and Shoreditch. Here the rents have become eye watering. In Q1 2015, the prime quoting rent in Shoreditch had reached £55 psf. In Q1 2016, this number had reached £75 psf highlighting an increase in 12 months of over 35 percent.

May 17, 2016

Rent rises may help meet shortage of Grade A office space in Belfast ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property

A chronic shortage of Grade A office space, especially those offering floor plates of over 10,000 sq ft in Belfast city means there is a growing acceptance in the market that Grade A rents need to continue to grow to encourage speculative development. This is due to the markets failure to provide suitable options within the City Core, finds the latest Belfast Offices Snapshot from Colliers. This lack of Grade A office stock Belfast has seen two well established Foreign Direct Investment companies (Allstate and Concentrix) bridge the gap from occupier to developer to secure their optimal property solution. However, the Belfast office market experienced a lower level of transactional activity in 2015 than expected. Take-up figures in 2015 totalled c.310,000 sq ft with the inclusion of the new c.100,000 sq ft Belfast City Council headquarters and therefore some way off the 2013 and 2014 take-up figures of 425,000 sq ft and 375,000 sq ft respectively.

May 12, 2016

Office construction at highest level in London for eight years ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property

Office construction in the Capital is at its highest level for eight years, according to Deloitte’s latest London Office Crane report, which measures the volume of office development taking place across central London. Recognising that the low supply of available office space across central London offers a limited choice for tenants, developers have responded by starting a record number of new schemes since the last survey. The latest results show that the volume of office construction has increased by 28 percent over the past six months to 14.2 million sq ft the highest level since the beginning of 2008. In just 18 months activity nearly doubled from 7.7 million sq ft in 2014. The financial sector has leased the largest share of office space under construction in the latest results, accounting for 2.3 million sq ft, or 39% of the let space while currently accounting for 38 percent of the space let, the TMT sector is a leading occupier group.

May 11, 2016

Central London office activity slows as EU uncertainty hits market ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property

Given the level of uncertainty around June’s Referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU, the £11.9bn invested into commercial real estate during the first three months of 2016 appeared robust. However, 50 percent of Q1’s volume was in January, with the data from Lambert Smith Hampton showing that activity tapered off significantly in the following two months. Anecdotal evidence clearly linked the slowdown directly to the approaching vote. As a result there was a significant fall in activity, which translated into a very quiet quarter for Central London Offices, where volume halved quarter-on-quarter to £2.2bn, the lowest quarterly total since the last part of 2011. Given that financial services is widely regarded as the most exposed sector to a possible ‘Brexit’, this sector appears to have suffered most from investor caution.In marked contrast, investment in the rest of UK Offices has remained buoyant at £1.4bn, the highest quarterly total since the middle of 2007.

May 10, 2016

Alternate workplaces strategies explored as demand for US offices grows ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Property

The US national office market recovery slowed slightly in the first quarter of 2016 amid some volatility within the financial markets. However, as the financial markets stabilised later in the quarter, office based job growth accelerated, likely signalling stronger tenant demand in the months ahead, according to a new report from CBRE. Tech and healthcare companies continue to drive growth, resulting in a scarcity of creative space in many cities. Meanwhile, energy-dominated markets slowed further due to sustained low oil prices. Many companies continued to seek space in vibrant downtown and suburban areas near public transport links in order to attract talent. A tightening supply within the Class A market has resulted in tenants exploring well-located Class B properties and creative space, with tenants across geographies and industries exploring alternate workplaces strategies to maximise efficiencies and collaboration.

May 4, 2016

Brexit debate having negligible effect on regional office market ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property

Demand for office space in the UK regional office markets has remained strong for the first quarter of this year, despite uncertainties surrounding a potential Brexit. A total of 1,381,350 sq ft of office space was taken in the ‘Big 6’ regional cities in the Jan-April period, just marginally below the final quarter performance of 2015 but 27 percent higher than the five quarterly average, CBRE has revealed. The leading cities in terms of year-to-date take-up are Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow, with total volumes of around the 285,000 sq ft mark in each of these three cities. All of these markets have substantially outperformed their five year quarterly average and have each supported a strong level of pre-letting activity. In the case of Glasgow, the volume for the beginning of 2016 has been twice the quarterly average. The strong start in this market is the result of Morgan Stanley signing a large pre-let for 154,814 sq ft at the first phase of Bothwell Exchange.

May 4, 2016

London firmly established as global leader in tech and media start ups ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property, Technology

One new tech company has started every hour in London since 2012, which has firmly established the Capital as the global leader in tech and media start ups. According to property firm JLL, over the last five years, a massive 45,000 new tech businesses has been set up in London, with 98 percent of tech companies being start-ups and small businesses. There is migration from the West End to the City and the East, including ‘Silicon Roundabout’ in Old Street, but also new areas which are attracting technology and media companies. The growth of small business has also seen the average office footprint of T&M business fall over the last three years. JLL says for every one T&M company that moved out of Aldgate, Clerkenwell and Shoreditch over the last three years, two new tech and media companies moved in indicating the rapid consolidation of T&M business in the East.

April 28, 2016

London’s office occupiers likely to move out to regions over next decade ⁰

by Sara Bean • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property

The high costs associated with accommodating staff in London will lead to a trend over the next decade of office occupiers moving away from the capital to the major cities around the UK. This is according to the 2016 edition of property consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton’s annual Office Market Report, which highlights the significant and growing difference in premises, staff and housing costs between Central London and the UK’s other key cities. For cities such as Bristol, Manchester and Birmingham, staff and premises costs (including rent, business rates, day-to-day running costs etc) for a new-build office collectively amount to just over £50,000 per workstation. Measured on the same basis, a workstation in London’s Midtown area carries an annual cost of well over £80,000. In practice, this means that the overall cost of occupying a new-build office in a location such as Bristol for 500 staff stands at £27m per annum; in Midtown, the total cost would be over £13m higher each year.

April 27, 2016

The digital future of work is more about humans than machines, claims study ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Property, Technology

The claims that robots will render the human species redundant are largely exaggerated suggests a new report from Cognizant’s Centre for the Future of Work and the Economist Intelligence Unit. But we will have to find a new path and it may be one that emphasises human strengths and characteristics working alongside robots. The study of 420 managers in Europe and the US explores the future of the workplace in an increasingly automated world and suggest we will also see the emergence of new jobs involved in the design of augmented reality and avatars as well as a generally greater emphasis on robot-human partnerships in an increasingly digital world. The study claims, unsurprisingly, that the reliance on physical office space will recede, forcing businesses to employ intelligent workplaces which will monitor workers’ environment, needs and even moods.