Marks & Spencer has made a very big play on sustainability.
The high street retailer, a member of the Global Forest & Trade Network-UK, has committed under its “Plan A” targets for all its timber being sustainable by 2012, using Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified timber in its store developments and fit-outs.
Shortly after launching the £200m Plan A programme in 2007, an M&S speaker at T&SB’s Wood Futures conference at the Festival Hall, London, reinforced this commitment and stressed just how critical an issue the environment generally, and minimising carbon emissions, was to business today.
The company is certainly demonstrating that. When completed next year, its new 195,000ft2 Cheshire Oaks store will not only be the retailer’s largest store outside London and its biggest development for more than 10 years, it will also be one of its most sustainable.
Flagship store
It has been billed in the local newspaper in Cheshire as the “Marble Arch of the North”, referring to M&S’s largest UK store in Marble Arch, London. “It’s a flagship store for us in terms of sustainability,” said an M&S spokesperson.
M&S stipulated that 100% of timber used in the store had to be FSC-certified, which on the structural side equates to a mighty 1,159m3 – not an easy ask and something which inevitably has a price premium attached.
Outgoing M&S chairman Sir Stuart Rose planted an oak tree at the site to mark the beginning of construction last November. Foundations have been laid and erection of the structure is expected to start soon.
Eco superstores have been springing up at an increasing rate in recent years – M&S completed three in 2007 and five energy-efficient stores in 2009/10. A further eco store is expected to open at Sheffield in the spring.
Curved roof
Architect AukettFitzroyRobinson has designed Cheshire Oaks with a dramatic sweeping curved roof, covering 150,000ft2 of retail space offering clothing, home furnishings, technology products, a food hall, restaurant and café.
“Timber, as a renewable source, has been our preferred structural material for this project; it has low embodied energy and sequestration of CO2 compared with steel and concrete,” said Nitesh Magdani, associate architect at AukettFitzroyRobinson.
“One of the initial aspirations was to minimise the use of materials within the project, hence the inclusion of a timber structure which has allowed us to expose the bare structural materials as finished surfaces within the store.
“We have also specified composite timber/aluminium curtain walling for the same reasons, thus giving a greater sense of warmth from the inside of the store.”
The mammoth project is the result of a five-year partnership between M&S and main contractor Simons Group.
Derby-based B&K Structures won the £4.25m contract to erect the hybrid structure comprising engineered timber, structural steelwork and pre-cast concrete panels.
Specialist frame and envelope contractor B&K started out as a steel contracting business and only added timber structures in 2006. Since then the number of timber engineering structures it has taken on has rocketed and it has developed a reputation for combining materials in hybrid structures, involving glulam, structural steel, cross-laminated timber, structural insulated panels and prefabricated timber cassettes in large projects.
Glulam
At Cheshire Oaks, timber is used predominantly in the roof structure in the form of European whitewood glulam. The beams, supported by steel columns, are generally 900x240mm or 600x140mm and curved to suit the roof. Clear spans are more than 14m and will form a striking feature for shoppers. The first floor structure panels will be made of laminated veneered lumber.
“Combining materials proved to be the winner for this client and its delivery team,” B&K said.
The structural steel element consists of approximately 1,000 tonnes, complete with intumescent paints.
The store hopes to meet a number of sustainability targets, including a 50% reduction in energy and CO2 compared to a non-sustainable store, and up to 90% reduction in landfill waste.
The project even has a Facebook page for those who want to follow the construction progress. In the coming weeks it will map the start of erection of the steel and timber frame.
New ideas, materials and equipment tested at Cheshire Oaks will be incorporated into M&S specifications in the future.
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Much of the structural timber will be left exposed internally to form a striking design feature |
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The curved roof is made from European whitewood glulam |
