Vitrum by Breakthrough

Overview 

Breakthrough Properties develops purpose-built facilities where life-sciences firms explore groundbreaking biotechnology, so it’s no surprise they embrace cutting-edge methods in the design and delivery of their buildings. This is especially true of their approach to Vitrum by Breakthrough, a new rentable 166,000-square-foot facility within St John’s Innovation Park in Cambridge, UK. 

We are providing structural design, sustainability consulting, façade engineering and protective design services for the project, helping to set a new standard of accountability for embodied carbon (EC) emissions. 

Highlights 

• Vitrum is targeting BREEAM Outstanding certification, including ambitious A1-A5 emissions goals. Our sustainability team helped set deliverable targets, shaped plans for limiting EC and developed a plan to track whole-life carbon emissions.
• We performed a pre-demolition audit of the existing building on the site to evaluate opportunities for reusing materials in the new building and a whole-life carbon assessment for the project. And we developed a process for tracking the actual EC in the building all the way through construction.
• An optioneering phase explored potential structural, façade and MEP elements to uncover systems that offered the greatest efficiency gains. Next came a procurement-strategy review in which we researched and reached out to suppliers to make sure less-usual items – like aluminum with high recycled content for the façade – would be available and to assess cost impacts.
• Realizing architect Henning Larsen’s aesthetic priorities while still meeting operational carbon targets required a nuanced approach to the façade design. Instead of relying on typical u-value targets for each façade location, we performed a whole-building energy-performance evaluation.
• The use of lightweight, high-recycled-content aluminum lowered the amount of structural framing needed to support the façade, which also provided EC savings.
• Our engineers used post-tensioned concrete instead of conventional reinforced-concrete slabs. Doing so both reduced the amount of steel needed and allowed slabs to be thinner, thus using less concrete.
• Another innovative approach was the use of temperature-dependent concrete mixes. On warmer days, it takes less cement to create the chemical reaction needed to reach the required three-day strength.
• Our structural team partnered with a civil engineering subconsultant to design a sustainable rainwater drainage system, where runoff is stored to slow its entry into sewers. It included blue roofs and below-ground storage as well as above-ground collection pools that create new wet/dry habitats.