Sustainable mixed-use development in Shanghai
China
The Makers
The Makers is a £120-million residential development constructed by the London Borough of Hackney with Londonewcastle as the residential advisor.
Located in Shoreditch, it provides 175 prime market apartments within an interconnected podium and a tower reaching 29 storeys. It boasts a generous provision of private communal facilities including a cinema, two landscaped garden terraces, a gym, a treatment room and three lounges.
A double-height entrance lobby hosts a 24/7 concierge, providing secure mail and delivery services and access to bookable facilities. The interior takes inspiration from the 1920s with a feature wall, terrazzo flooring, bespoke lighting, custom furniture, brass details and smoked oak chevron floors.
The residential scheme was developed to pay for the adjoined state-of-the-art college, which has a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating, and was developed using BIM level 2.
Our role
Currie & Brown provided cost management and principal designer services from feasibility stage.
During the design phase we undertook a number of cost options to allow the client to calculate the optimal viable height of the tower development. We also undertook a cost option analysis on sustainable solutions for the development, including green roofs, photovoltaics, CHP and rainwater harvesting.
Part of our services required implementing a value-for-money process to show that the agreed contract sum provided good value. We were able to use our extensive benchmarking, for both residential developments and schools, to demonstrate this.
One of the important requirements for the service we provided was to split the costs of the interconnected mixed-use scheme into the costs of the residential development and the college costs. Working closely with the client, we created a bespoke cost planning and cost reporting format to assist Hackney with the appraisal.
As part of the unilateral undertakings of the development, 30 apprentices were required to work on the scheme. Over the course of the project three apprentices on Currie & Brown’s apprentice programme were involved in the scheme, contributing to this requirement.
