Working closely with the project team, which includes JLL Planning, architects Chetwoods, BCA Landscape Solutions and Stantec, Waterman co-ordinated a retrospective Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and authored the Environmental Statement (ES). In addition, our specialists delivered a wide range of technical services for the scheme, including transport, air quality, noise, ecology, biodiversity, landscape and visual impact assessments, as well as arboriculture, flood risk, utilities, sustainability and operational waste management strategies. Our team also provided expert witness at the Crown Development Route Public Inquiry held in early December, which was the first such inquiry under this process since its adoption in 2025, covering matters such as noise, lighting, air quality, traffic, biodiversity and landscape.

To support long-term environmental stewardship, Waterman’s ecologists contributed to an updated Environmental Management Plan, ensuring the establishment and enhancement of habitats across the site. We also prepared an updated Staff Travel Plan to promote active and sustainable travel for employees.

Working in close collaboration with the project team including main contractor Mace, project managers Third London Wall, and cost consultants Arcadis, Waterman’s team provided multidisciplinary consultancy services for Edenica. This saw our specialists deliver sustainability, building services, structural engineering, and environmental input, and the scheme was also a pilot project for the first-ever standardised approach to Materials Passports, developed by Circuland and Waterman’s sustainability team.

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Tasked with unlocking the potential of the existing building, our structures specialists undertook deep analysis of the existing frame, enabling the vast majority to be retained. Our design solution for the internal spaces focused on maximising available space for clear, column-free office floors, whilst also increasing available amenity space and accommodating the four new roof terraces. At the top floor level extension, the exposed concrete and steel structure punctuates the space. The fully exposed precast concrete soffits are clean and uncluttered, facilitated by a new underfloor air ventilation system and perimeter trench heating and cooling solution. This can provide free cooling for up to 85% of the year and provides a simple and adaptable low embodied carbon solution for the additional floor.

Our all-electric building services strategy features a Hybrid VRF heating and cooling system with low GWP R32 refrigerant connected to branch controllers that provide flexible, water based on floor heating and cooling circuits feeding fan coil units. Through the use of carefully designed raft ceilings, the office spaces will feature a striking balance of semi-exposed services and structure. In a further boost to efficiency, building controls will utilise Synapsis and Demand Logic platforms to map energy consumption and quickly identify equipment faults or inefficiencies. This real-time analysis ensures equipment operates as designed throughout its entire lifecycle, helping to close the performance gap between design and reality.

Unlocking design potential

Our structural specialists developed a low-carbon structure using 700 tonnes of X-Carb steel, which alone resulted in an estimated saving of 1,500 tonnes of embodied carbon. With the building designed around a highly repetitive and efficient structural grid, the repeating structural forms meant material waste was reduced and opportunities for future reuse were maximised. The geometric precision and exposed steelwork enhance the design to reflect the character of the historic dock sheds, whilst the exposed saw-tooth roof and the elegant steel trusses play a central role in both the building’s performance and its visual identity.

With the striking ground floor reception and café area sitting above the leisure centre’s sports hall, our specialists worked with the architects and fabricators to deliver a series of trusses to span the 24m clear span needed to meet Sports England design standards. These trusses were carefully dimensioned to achieve the symmetry of 45-degree angles whilst also being suitable for delivery to site as a single splice-free member. The resulting exposed steelwork design contributes to the clean, industrial aesthetic of the incredible entrance sequence designed by Conran and Partners.

Above the swimming pool, deeper trusses were detailed to be storey-high so that the top chord of the truss supports the first-floor office and the end of the bottom chord supports the gym space at ground floor level. The simplicity of the exposed structural form was achieved through rigorous attention to detail, seeing the depths of the inclined sawtooth roof beams varied to align perfectly with the primary beams supporting them.

The exposed columns on the dock elevation were detailed as an asymmetric ‘H’ to provide space for the hidden rainwater pipes, while the developed junction of the trusses ensured they enhance the clean lines of the 45-degree angles. In the office spaces, beams were detailed with a visual hierarchy, using slightly shallower secondary beams supported by deeper primary beams. This arrangement created visible lines of support that run down the full length of the office floors.