
145 City Road
This is a landmark mixed-use scheme in the heart of “Tech City” in the London Borough of Hackney. The project comprised of two buildings, The Atlas Building, an iconic 40 storey residential tower and a 9 storey commercial office building now occupied by WeWork, in addition to a series of public spaces which were completed in 2019.
The development responded to the areas needs by replacing existing commercial provision with new housing. All 302 private and affordable apartments are dual-aspect and have balconies, with the upper units able to access private roof terraces. The building contains an extensive range of amenities for residents including a gym, pool, cafe and children’s play areas.
Over 35% of the footprint is set aside as public space. A generous piazza between the two buildings forms a new pedestrian link, with a mix of shops and cafes at the base of both buildings that creates a lively, vibrant place for people to live, work and socialise.

Key points
BREEAM Excellent
Code for sustainable homes level 4
New pedestrian link
Project completed and handed over on time
Sectional handovers achieved
Use of combined heating and cooling interface units

20 different apartment types

Mixed residential and commercial and public space

Mace

Project Challenges & Characteristics
Being mixed use, the project presented several challenges to successful completion and commissioning. The commercial building was completed in May 2018 with the residential block following in June 2019, therefore many systems had to be completed on a standalone basis, then be run and maintained until finally being combined and integrated.
- The buildings are served by a combination of dedicated and common HVAC plant and systems.
- The heating systems are served by common boilers but are hydraulically separated by plate heat exchangers, while each building is served by dedicated chillers.
- The commercial tower was completed to the shell and core stage so all mechanical systems were set up using future loops and load dampers.
- A single fire alarm system protects the entire site, so a number of cause and effect tests had to be conducted to assimilate each completed section into the whole.
- The apartments are fitted with a combination interface unit that supplies under floor heating, domestic hot water and cooling to ceiling mounted fan coil units.
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