UCL’s PEARL is the sustainable Jewel in the Crown at construction awards

Envisioned, developed, and implemented by teams at UCL with architects Penoyre & Prasad, PEARL was praised for the use and reuse of strong, light, durable materials which boost the building’s efficiency and performance.  The building is designed to be as energy efficient as possible. This, plus a full array of solar photovoltaic panels, ensures that PEARL is net negative in terms of emissions and actually provides surplus energy to neighbouring buildings. The judges rewarded the ‘uplifting’ site for demonstrating that outstanding design and minimal environmental impact can go hand in hand.

UCL commissioned this project to provide further capacity to work in an interdisciplinary fashion, helping to solve the challenges that cities will face in the 21st century. PEARL is the successor to the PAMELA research site in north London.

Two UCL buildings were shortlisted, with the renovation of Level 50, One Canada Square in the category of ‘Refurbishment Project of the Year’. Both sites have received the highest accreditations for building performance, with PEARL achieving ‘Outstanding’ under BREEAM’s certification for building sustainability. Level 50 is an expansion of the UCL School of Management’s base in Canary Wharf.

The refurbishment of Level 50 was awarded ‘Gold’ by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors in the SKA scheme for building renovation. The refurbishment transformed a former office into an educational and collaborative business setting ready for the 21st century. In so doing the project team worked with to create a design incorporating the existing on-site materials to emphasize renewal, repair, and reuse, over replacement. The benefits of this approach are reduced embodied carbon, the total travel miles of goods, and the energy output of transporting material to and from the ground floor to Level 50.

UCL was represented at the awards by Neil Turvey in his capacity as project manager.