Reach for the Sky

“An extraordinary building. One that every Londoner, indeed every visitor to the Capital, should want to get to know” (Jonathan Glancey, architectural correspondent for The Guardian). “Surely a contender for the greatest skyscraper ever built?” (leading architectural commentator Charles Jencks). “Architecture seems more interested than ever before in producing buildings that combine aesthetic appeal, environmental sensitivity and a feeling of well-being for occupants… This building is a great example of that philosophy” (Anthony Flint, architecture writer at The Boston Globe).

These feted critics are talking about 30 St Mary Axe – the newly-opened London home of leading reinsurance organisation Swiss Re, painstakingly designed by celebrated architect Norman Foster. A stunning structure located on the 1.4 acre site of the former Grade II-listed Baltic Exchange, the building rises through 40 floors from its base point adjacent to Leadenhall Street in the heart of the Square Mile, incorporating 24,000 square metres of glass and 10,000 tonnes of structural steel.

From an environmental perspective, the building (which is bounded by Bury Street, Bury Court and Browns Buildings) sets new standards. Foster and Partners’ brilliant design deliberately “maximises the beneficial effects of the outside world in terms of light, ventilation and view”. Darker glazed panels denote the location of enclosed lightwells inside the double-skinned energy efficient façade that spirals around the building in classic curvilinear form, bringing both light and fresh air deep into the office floors. Indeed, the building is capable of being naturally ventilated for up to 40% of the year, which is mightily impressive given its central London location.

The building services are based on a “supply and demand ethic” (in the words of Foster and Partners architect Paul Scott). “It’s an arrangement that’s inherently more efficient than larger, central systems,” he suggested.

The pine cone-like appearance is deliberate, making the most of the small site by expanding to a maximum possible circumference of 176 metres in the built form’s middle section. In combination with the central core, the positioning of the spiralling lightwells creates six ‘square’ accommodation areas on every floor (which makes for an energy efficient and rather intimate use of the space… and an attractive selling point for future tenants).

Blinds located within the façade’s cavity intercept solar gain before it enters the office environment. Intercepted heat is then reclaimed or rejected depending on the requirement for heating or cooling. In a further nod to The Green Lobby, low energy light fittings are ubiquitous. Not for nothing is 30 St Mary Axe billed as “London’s first environmentally-sustainable building”.

On entry, visitors are confronted by the stunning double-height lobby, where 16 high-speed passenger lifts provide access to the office floors. Swiss Re currently occupies around half of the total office space, leasing some 220,000 square feet on floors two through to 15. The fit-out (completed by Bennett Interior Design) has resulted in one of the very best working environments in the Capital. Reflecting the increasingly diverse nature of Swiss Re’s activities, that fit-out ranges from dealer desks on two trading floors through to executive offices, a lecture theatre and video conferencing suites. Floors 35 through to 37 house the main building services plant and related machinery.

This well-conceived ensemble is neatly topped off – literally – by the 39th floor fine dining 70-seater restaurant (for the exclusive use of tenants of 30 St Mary Axe and their guests). Run by Searcy Corrigan, it’s London’s highest restaurant, in fact. There’s also a bar area immediately beneath the building’s fully-glazed apex dome that can accommodate 90 guests, and is the only one capable of offering 360-degree views of the Capital. Another prime selling point for would-be occupants.

A need for consolidation

Back in 1998, Swiss Re found itself in control of a diversifying risk transfer, risk financing and asset management business in the Capital, where it had operated for over a century. One that had expanded beyond its more traditional non-life reinsurance business to include life and health, and the (then) newer operations of its Financial Services Business Group.

Those business units were spread across five sprawling locations within the Square Mile, and it was Swiss Re chief executive John Coomber’s desire to bring those operations (ie Swiss Re Capital Management and Advisory, Swiss Re Life and Health and Swiss Re UK Property and Casualty) – not to mention 800-plus employees – together under one roof.

John Fitzpatrick, head of Swiss Re’s Life and Health Business Group and a member of the Executive Board, takes up the story. “We wanted to create a landmark structure of which we could be proud, and that our neighbours in the City and across London would appreciate,” suggested Fitzpatrick. “We desired a building which would help us to attract the best talents in the business, and a location where clients would feel comfortable. Space had to be available for future expansion, so we decided on a structure that we could share with like-minded organisations.”

Following practical completion in October 2003, initial occupation began last December and carried on until April this year. The building is managed in a somewhat unique way. Although Swiss Re is both the developer and principal tenant at 30 St Mary Axe, Swiss Re deliberately created a wholly-owned UK subsidiary – 30 St Mary Axe Management Services Ltd – to provide efficient property management services to the tenants. Tenants then pay a service charge based on the percentage of the total net area of the building which they occupy. It’s a rather clever solution.

30 St Mary Axe Management Services’ on-site property director, Andrew Green, is in charge of landlord services. A surveyor by profession, Green began his facilities management career – he’s now a fully-fledged member of the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) – back in the early 1980s. “Pretty much the time when facilities management as we know it today really started in the private sector,” he said. “It was a time of great change, with computerisation creeping in. That’s when I first became aware of data security issues and systems provision.”

Over time, Green found himself migrating into a split role encompassing property and real estate management, as well as operational facilities direction, working on behalf of major clients including Enron, Societe Generale and Hambros. It was during his spell at Enron that Green first encountered the Swiss Re management team about to embark on design work for their new headquarters.

“It was clear what they were looking for,” chipped in Green. “Someone who could play a vital role during the construction and design phase, but then carry on and set up an independent company that would operate the building for them”. Never one to shirk a challenge, Green accepted this challenging role mainly due to his ongoing interest in the operational side of facilities management.

Working with the designers

Green explains that the initial phase of the build project involved working closely with the designers (see panel ‘30 St Mary Axe: The Professional Design and Management Team’) to review the overall building and systems configurations, making sure that the architect’s ‘wish list’ would be operable and practical in equal measure.

What, one wonders, were the initial concerns when it came to security? “The design of the building began prior to 9/11, and the construction just after (see panel ‘30 St Mary Axe: Constructing the Building and Practical Completion’), so we had an opportunity to review some of the early lessons learned from what happened in New York and then concentrate on the general base design of the structure,” continued Green. “There wasn’t any real need for wholesale material alterations, but we did review some of the finer detail in terms of how we might deliver the final security solution.”

Previously, Green and his colleagues had always considered security matters in relation to the Provisional IRA threat. “I’ve worked through some of the IRA bombings. Government agencies always taught us to make whatever building you were managing that little bit more inaccessible to the would-be terrorist than the one next door,” he added. “The theory being that if every company adopts that same ethic then you force the risk outwards, away from the City. On top of that is the Ring of Steel enforced by the Metropolitan Police, which has made a massive difference to security in the Square Mile.”

Much of the fine detail and design engineering had to be worked up by VIDEF Security Consulting, the company having been appointed as project security consultant with full responsibility for the planning, design and project management of the entire security installation for 30 St Mary Axe (and the associated five-storey management offices in Bury Street). The system installations – carried out by Universal Security Systems – encompass CCTV, access control, alarm monitoring, turnstiles in the main reception area, personal attack facilities and duress alarms, visitor photo ID and X-ray baggage screening.

“9/11 changed all the preconceptions about the potential threats to high profile buildings,” explained Bernard Lockett, director of VIDEF Security Consulting and lead consultant on the project. “We’d previously worked on numerous high profile corporate buildings in the City and at Canary Wharf, and if I’d recommended full X-ray screening to these clients I think the suggestion would have been greeted with some amusement. Not any more.” A full X-ray facility now sits enclosed behind the main reception desk, in many ways exhibiting both the client’s need for top class security and the architect’s desire for maintaining aesthetics.

Not surprisingly, there was a perceived need to defend the new building’s boundaries (hence the decision to fashion small concrete walls at the perimeter of the building’s main plaza, interspersed with a series of security bollards to prevent vans or cars potentially laden with explosives or toxic chemicals from being driven towards the main entrance).

The original design for the lighting of the external plaza area incorporated a number of columns surrounding the space adorned by suspended luminaire fittings. Consequently, the initial external CCTV surveillance design pointed towards mounting cameras on columns identical to the lighting columns themselves. However, the plaza lighting scheme subsequently changed. The lighting columns were omitted, so too the CCTV columns. “After reviewing various options, it was decided to mount the ‘external’ cameras within the colonnade surrounding the first floor of the building,” outlined Lockett. “It makes for an extremely effective CCTV arrangement that’s aesthetically pleasing while being sensitive to the building’s design.”

Swiss Re: the tenant viewpoint

Like a good many other facilities professionals, by his own admission Gerry Campbell – head of facilities management for 30 St Mary Axe tenant Swiss Re – “fell into the industry”. He’d spent nigh on a decade in the Armed Forces (with the Royal Air Force) prior to commencing his career at Broadgate Estates in the building management arena. From there he moved on to Guardian, managing its building portfolio in the Capital prior to joining Swiss Re.

Campbell was originally based at Swiss Re’s Moorfields House operation in the Moorgate area, enjoying sole facilities management responsibility of that property and another Swiss Re occupancy at Tower 42. The relocation to 30 St Mary Axe effectively meant that disparate Swiss Re facilities operations had to be brought together. No easy task, but one that Campbell nonetheless relished.

Now in charge of 26 staff (a further 20 are outsourced and employed on a daily basis), Campbell is directly responsible for all of the services within Swiss Re’s ‘demise’ (to use facilities management speak), ranging from engineering, cleaning and security through to Health and Safety and fire protection.

“Liaison on security issues between Andrew and his management company is key,” said Campbell. “We meet on a formal basis every month to review all aspects of the building’s services. The corresponding managers at ISS Coflex [of whom more anon] are also included.” That said, high level security strategy is solely the preserve of Green and Campbell.

“From a security point of view,” opined Andrew Green, “it’s my responsibility to manage the perimeter of the building, access to the building, the guarding function, all of the CCTV provision and the delivery of goods in and out. Essentially, we protect the façade of the building and the main circulation spaces while Gerry and the managers of future tenants decide how to customise their own areas. It’s a set-up that works well for all concerned.”

Harking back to the potential terrorist threat, Campbell – a member of the BIFM and the Business Continuity Institute – is adamant that any building in the City is a potential target. “The threat has always been there in some shape or form,” added Campbell. “The difficulty is that members of the public and our staff will read and fully believe what’s printed in the newspapers, but that doesn’t take into account the excellent work being done in the background by the City of London Police and the City of London Corporation. Only recently the Home Secretary vowed not to focus on mistakes that may have been made with national security because they’re immediately picked up by the media and sensationalised.”

The security guarding regime

Where guarding can go wrong is normally when there’s a failure in the management structure and reporting lines of the appointed contractor. “It’s rarely the guys on site,” suggested Andrew Green. “They’ll do a good, solid job if they’re well supported. We made a point of meeting with the management at First Security who’d be handling our contract. Would they be the sort of people with whom we could work? Did they share our common values? Did they really understand what we wanted them to take on?”

Initially, First Security faced a challenging environment. “They were managing a building where there were many contractors still working on site,” said Gerry Campbell, “which is difficult to say the least. There was also a remit to provide security for the landlord and the tenants, and the delivery of the service had to be seamless. First invested a good deal of management time, and have adapted really well to the demands we’ve placed upon them.”

For Campbell, it’s important that any on-site mistakes in the guarding operation are recognised and then never repeated. “That way, the client-contractor relationship can move forward,” he explained, “whatever guarding company the end user has employed. Regular, honest dialogue between all parties involved is the only real way to successfully manage security service provision.”

The ‘pitch’ for the guarding contract came via property and facilities management concern ISS Coflex, the main partner employed by 30 St Mary Axe Management Services to procure and deliver services solutions to the landlord and tenants, and who effectively run the day-to-day operations of the building.

“We’ve tried to set things up in such a way that ISS Coflex is an extension of my company,” stated Andrew Green. “We share common offices. Our processes are intertwined. We use the same e-mail and telephone systems, and our data is shared across the same servers. If we’re working on the same platform then any future changes will be incorporated across the board.” The logic is very obviously a sound one.

“We went through a thorough and hugely detailed procurement process for the guarding contract,” said ISS Coflex’s property manager Sandra Constable. “Having carried out market research into the guarding sector, the pre-qualification period entailed presentations by the companies involved, site visits and client interviews with existing contract holders in other buildings.”

Four contractors were invited to tender, the process including workshops with the suppliers’ operations managers and the submission of detailed proposals. ISS Coflex was keen to distinguish between ‘sales people’ and those who would be working with them on site. “At every stage of the tender we evaluated each company very carefully,” added Constable. “What was particularly important to us wasn’t just the guarding contractor’s operational expertise, but also its experience in being able to mobilise services quickly and efficiently following completion of the construction phase in a new build project. That was undoubtedly the key factor.”

First Security eventually won the day, having exhibited a proven track record for servicing blue chip clients including HSBC at Canary Wharf. A team of 30 is operational on site, providing security on a 24/7 basis. There are two day shifts and two night shifts, with officers working a four-on/four-off pattern. Teams of five operatives comprise one controller (responsible for monitoring the CCTV and responding to fire evacuation needs), a supervisor and three officers, with a contracts manager overseeing the whole operation across any given week.

At all times there are two First Security officers performing Front-of-House duties in the main reception area, with one manning the access control gates and the other taking care of X-ray machine operations. There’s also a Back-of-House officer deployed to deal with couriers and contractors, etc. A nice touch for the client is that First station a designated officer outside the building who can offer an initial point of contact for members of the public and staff alike, and who’s fully briefed on the facts and history of the building if passers-by are keen to find out more about this wonderful addition to the City.

With CCTV covering the entire building, patrols during the hours of darkness are kept to a minimum. Nonetheless, the officers remain vigilant at all times. They must. People are always working on the occupied floors no matter what time of day or night, thus a great deal of attention to duty is paramount.

“It would be naïve in the extreme to take on a client such as Swiss Re – and a building on the scale of 30 St Mary Axe – without acknowledging the heightened terrorist threat that such a contract brings,” said Graham Cornwell, First Security’s director of operations. “Working in the Capital, and with some of the world’s largest corporations and landmark buildings such as Lloyds of London only a stone’s throw away, one could argue that the risk is omnipresent, with Swiss Re no more or less exceptional a case.” A point with which Andrew Green fully concurs.

Speaking exclusively to SMT, Cornwell continued along the terrorism angle. “Terrorism comes in many guises,” he opined. “By definition the actions of terrorists are extreme. That being the case, our officers receive the highest level of counter-terrorism training, which is conducted in consultation and accordance with the Corporation of London and City of London Police guidelines.” Cornwell is quick to point out that First’s operatives attend specialist anti-terrorism workshops on a regular basis, sharing Best Practice techniques all the while.

Turning to access control

Universal Security Systems won the contract for security systems installation in February 2003, beginning work on site the following August. The company’s engineers spent much of the time inbetween preparing and providing information for the electrical contractor, covering issues such as containment.

“There was a massive purge with a view to having the building up-and-running before Christmas,” said Universal’s project director Paul Mangham. “It was a mammoth task, but we managed to hit the deadline. VIDEF was always available to resolve day-to-day issues. The client is now enjoying a slick and neat systems set-up that operates seamlessly.”

In best design fashion, let’s consider the systems installation in line with many a consultant’s ‘onion principle’ (ie that security be designed from the outside in) (see panel ‘30 St Mary Axe: The Electronic and Physical Security Equipment Specification’).

Armed with the VIDEF Security Consulting specification and drawings, Universal’s team sketched out the building shape in CAD packages and separated out each of the 40 storeys. “The building is what we call ‘partitioned’. In other words, it’s divided into strictly defined zones,” added Mangham. “This means you can make use of the LAN to connect all of the security systems into one hub.”

As far as access control’s concerned, the most noticeable element in the reception area is the five-lane SpeedStile ‘gate’ arrangement adjacent to the main desk. “Reception lobby turnstiles are always a potential issue with architects, and Foster and Partners are no exception,” commented Bernard Lockett. “Even though an attractive design was proposed by Gunnebo Mayor, the architect wanted the finishes amended to encompass a tapered design complete with soft blue lighting at the base. “That meant shipping the units over to Italy so that they could be worked on by a company called Marzorati Ronchetti,” added Mangham. “The end result is superb, though, and was well worth the effort.”

The access control system designed by VIDEF to serve the building is based on Legic smart card technology, and makes use of the Honeywell Security NexWatch platform – very much a high end corporate access system. The cards themselves are fully encrypted, and therefore cannot be cloned or interrogated by would-be infiltrators. “In practice, the end user will issue the cards,” stated Mangham, “program them, add photo ID and colour ID via the cameras on the front desk and then access will be verified. The real beauty is that you can configure the system to allow entry only to specified areas within the building.”

On the exit lane of the SpeedStiles sit proximity readers designed for staff members. For visitors, there’s a ‘card grabber’ which reads the card and will then automatically drop it into a dispenser. First Security’s officers can retrieve the cards as when necessary. The cards are then recycled (they may be reprinted and reprogrammed up to 500 times each). “Visitor card arrangements need a little bit of babysitting,” suggested Mangham. “Clients will always want to cut back on card loss, and rightly so. This is one way of doing so.”

Interestingly, the client wanted biometric access for the service staff entrance to the Bury Street building. That being the case, an enrolment fingerprint was taken of each member of staff along with a headshot photo. When a given individual attempts to access the building, their picture is brought up on screen and data will state whether or not that person is authorised. It’s a stand-alone system.

Before venturing deeper into the building’s access configuration, it’s worth mentioning the work that has been done to secure the deliveries entranceway that runs alongside the tower, leading down into the basement. Only one vehicle can enter or exit at any given time, with a traffic light system having been installed in conjunction with a high security T1205 road blocker embedded into the ground at the top of the ramp. “That’ll break the axle of any vehicle attempting illegal entry,” said Mangham.

Images of the roadway are generated by CCTV cameras and viewed on four 17” monitors housed in the basement Dock Master’s Office. A digital entry phone system from Complus Teltronic is used by all visitors, with the vehicle barrier only being raised if and when access is authorised.

At this point, Mangham makes an important assertion. “Many clients tend to go downmarket on entry phone systems, but to their great credit Andrew Green and Gerry Campbell wanted ‘Best of Breed’. It’s an area that’s so small in cost compared to the rest of a project that the end user may as well spend a bigger portion of the budget on it. This is the sort of active system that the client will want to add to in the future, so why not buy a set-up that’s as flexible and durable as possible?”

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