CAFOD Headquarters, London SE1

The site is situated in Southwark and is a very restricted site, with the main road to the front elevation and adjoining buildings to the sides, requiring party wall awards and agreements.

Key elements of the project involved:

• Five no ground source boreholes drilled to 150m deep underneath the building structure itself.
• Basement structure is formed with permanent sheet piles, driven 800mm away from the adjacent five storey building.
• Raft type ground bearing slab, with thickening at column position, is designed as the main foundations.
• Concrete frame structure with split levels at each of the five floor levels up to roof.
• Envelope comprises of brickwork, zinc cladding, timber rain screen cladding and curtain walling.
• Internal concrete slab soffits are exposed to provide thermal mass heating and cooling. There is also a network of pipes cast in which are connected to the ground source heat pumps at basement level which will provide 70% of all heating and cooling for the building from the first floor upwards.
• Roof structure/finish consists of a combination of both green and brown roofing.

All deliveries and use of the tower crane had to be carefully planned in line with our overall logistics strategy.

Our design team on this project included Black Architecture, who worked with us on our award winning, sustainable head office in Hoddesdon.

CAFOD are a worldwide Catholic charity, that aid and fund through various organisations around the world and are a main supporter for groups like HIV/Aids relief, disasters and emergencies - about 500 organisations in total.