TOWN CENTRES

Why greener spaces are flexible spaces

THE CASE FOR A BLENDED APPROACH TO ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

WHY BLENDED PLACES ARE GREENER

The 15-minute city concept is all about providing what communities need in close proximity, blending work, home and social lives with civic, health, wellbeing, education and transport. This enhances the community spirit and loyalty of that place, which in turn is good for the businesses that operate there. The blend of property uses is key; town centres need to be thought of as mixed-use consumer hubs and not just places to shop. The retail-only model is largely broken.

There are significant economic and environmental efficiencies to be made by creating busy places, and mixed-use town centres are at the heart of this. A broader church of occupation typologies with cross-pollination of uses increases footfall, but decreases journeys as people need to travel less to reach the things they need. Ensuring that buildings are used throughout the day optimises the energy required to heat or light them, and building in flexibility of space means reducing the financial and environmental burden, should occupational needs change in the future. Town centres need to be viewed as ecosystems of different but connected uses.

This is our vision for Nicholson Quarter, a 1.4million sq ft town centre repurposing development in Maidenhead with sustainability, social wellbeing, and the environment at the core of delivering this goal. All while being committed to generating consistently strong financial returns for shareholders and investors.

Investors want occupiers, occupiers want customers and customers want… Well, what do they want? Unsurprisingly they want active places, nice environments, access to services or goods, and places to have fun. They want to feel a part of a community, and increasingly, a reduction of their impact on the planet is becoming a focus. Fail to deliver this to customers and fail to deliver to investors. Therefore, the basis of any future town centre investment strategy must be around placemaking, sustainability and relevance.

EVOLVING THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

It’s certainly more complicated to build than it used to be, but it is really exciting to be at the forefront of creating new places that will be central to the lives of communities into the next century. Our development experiences at Battersea Power Station, Gunwharf Quays, Orpington and Maidenhead are all very different, but the essence is the same: evolve and enhance these places to reflect the needs of their communities and wider societal benefits.

The debate on rebuild or retrofit rolls on, with pros and cons for each from an environmental perspective. In most instances, we would not be able to develop such ambitious town centre developments within the existing building fabric. Although essentially starting the embodied carbon journey again, rebuilding does have some significant advantages, both in terms of creating relevant and interesting places that are far more useful going forwards, but also in terms of the opportunity for building with far better and greener building standards and design.

Taking Maidenhead as an example, the proposed development is seeking to design in resilience to climate change and to increase the ecological value of the site. Its buildings need to consume less energy, with fewer associated carbon emissions. A development’s layout and building orientation can have an impact on energy consumption, due to the interactions of ‘passive’ natural systems such as solar heat, natural light, evaporative cooling and displacement ventilation. Its buildings’ massing can also influence its energy performance, with all external surfaces (walls, floors, roofs etc.) acting as heat loss elements. Therefore, massing buildings to reduce external surface areas for individual units can help reduce heat demand for these units within a building. Individual units will also derive a beneficial ‘shelter factor’ from other units, as well as corridors and circulation space.

Buildings then use ‘active’ systems that provide high standard construction methods, such as BREEAM, thermal efficiency of the building envelope, and are fitted with natural systems and low- and zero-carbon technologies to reduce energy consumption. There is then ongoing management for water resources, enhanced biodiversity, operational waste and recycling, reducing pollution, as well as responsible sourcing and recycling of construction materials.

Nicholson Quarter, Maidenhead

FLEXIBLE MEANS

Green retail development isn’t just about construction materials and energy usage: it’s about the design, rightsizing and flexibility of space. Adaptation is the key to the longevity of these places and important to delivering on both environmental and economic sustainability.

What do we mean by flexibility? It touches various elements, from building configuration, type of occupier and a flexible financial model.

Flexibility means adaptability of unit configuration. Our Maidenhead development is on the site of a shopping centre that was struggling with retail occupation as well as its ability to provide local residents with what they actually needed. Shops often don’t need the large footprints they used to have and so the retail element is being right-sized from 180,000sqft in 40 units to 90,000sqft in 75 units, with units ranging from 250sqft to 5,000sqft. That’s a reduction in average unit size from 4,500sqft to 1,200sqft. No-one would have predicted this two decades ago when ecommerce was in its infancy and many retail brands were seeking everbigger footprints. It just goes to show that flexible spaces are key to future tenants’ preferences. It is right occupationally, but right-sizing is also greener, as smaller spaces mean less heating per unit.

Flexibility means units need to be adaptable to different kinds of occupiers. Traditional retail units as we have defined them in the last 50 years are no longer about creating identikit high streets with the same brands. The whole repurposing agenda is bringing to light the need to think more broadly about town centre uses, which could be retail, but also health, wellbeing, co-working, education, culture, civic and so on.

Flexibility means moving away from covenant‑based leasing and is important in community-based retail places. A greater proportion of independent businesses provide a point of difference as well as linking in with community spirit and engagement. Flexible leases, turnover leases and a range of unit sizes allow small enterprises to grow and evolve. Meanwhile, incubator retail, pop-ups and markets create an active and vibrant street scene that is fluid, entertaining, interesting and ever-changing, thereby holding shoppers’ curiosity. New concepts like Souk adapt the uses within units throughout the day as consumers want different things at different times; why have a shop with no customers most of the day when you can use that space for something else?

Flexibility also means bringing a different financial perspective with regards to how best to drive value from the site, and this might be less about the retail specific income. Rents and other overheads need to be affordable, but more important is the recognition that the primary goal of the ‘retail’ frontage is in driving the demand for other large spaces in the development, such as residential and offices.

Furthermore, retail supporting local communities will be greener than retail in large destinations due to reduced travel, as well as the fact they are visited more frequently.

A BLENDED APPROACH

There is no single solution to fixing either the problems inherent in retail places, or the route to net zero. Green regeneration is more than just improving the performance of buildings, or consuming less energy, or planting more trees. It’s all of these of course, but arguably of most importance is extending and enhancing their relevance to the people that use them, for the long term. It needs to be a blended approach: greening, social value, occupation and sustainability – they’re all linked.

Sometimes creative solutions can help resolve one problem with another. Battersea has loads of outdoor dining space, meaning less heating is required. When it is cold, they have a system that takes the extraction from the restaurant units, cleans it and uses it to heat external dining areas.

Fixing retail “is” going green. Community engagement comes from nice environments and with social value.

If we’re rebuilding the centres of our towns and cities, how can we be sure they will be relevant in 50 years’ time? If we don’t build for the long term, then there is no investment story. Flexible places are greener and more resilient and therefore provide the best long term investment returns.