VOX Technology Park implements award winning architecture in order to achieve BREEAM Outstanding

Located in the northern part of Timisoara, Romania, Vox Technology Park is a 29,000 sqm office building with an impressive award-winning architecture. It’s an iconic presence in an area of the city that is fast developing and a vibrant business hub, offering a wide range of facilities and services including integrated technology and high-comfort conditions for its occupants.

Situated in a developing area, Vox Technology Park was designed to become the area’s urban pole, with a layout and functions that would not only ensure high levels of productivity for the employees at work in its office spaces, but also would provide jobs to encourage economic and social growth.

Several key features ensure the attainability of the ambitious goals proposed for this building. To begin with, this is a very compact building, offering up to 3,500 sqm of rentable area per floor. All spaces have plenty of daylight, while also protecting the occupants from glare and overheating, due to the overall design principles. The glass facade insulates very well thermally and against noise. On the loudest area in the building, on the first floor, near the facade facing the high-traffic boulevard, acoustic measurements indicated an average noise level of 41,5 dB, optimal for office activities. The building is equipped with a high-efficiency HVAC system, maintained properly and automated through a BMS pre-defined protocol.

Access to the building is based on biometric authentication. Vox Car Sharing is a platform of electric cars that can be used by the occupants, thus reducing transportation costs for tenant companies and also the pollution otherwise generated. Urban mobility in all its shapes and forms is welcome and well accommodated, as the building features bicycle storage with changing rooms and showers on the first underground parking level. Public transportation frequency and the network of bicycle routes were also improved after discussions with the local public administration.

The working environment is supported by many facilities and services: a restaurant, a bistro, 2.100 sqm fully equipped gym, beauty parlor, bank and ATM, Vox Relax Area with lounge, mini golf, pool table, board games and 750 sqm suspended garden, conference rooms and a private university, Zetta University, which offers IT and Business academic programs for those who want to earn a USA Accredited Degree. Vox Cowork is a platform for startups, providing flexible working spaces, conference rooms, a shared kitchen and an accelerator program.

Vox Technology Park started to experiment with BREEAM at the end of 2015, at the beginning of the design stage because the investor, developer and architect wanted to integrate sustainability features in their building. That was the start of a learning process in which all parties kept on raising the bar to cover more and more of the BREEAM requirements, resulting in the highest BREEAM New Building Construction certification score in the country (86.7%), in January 2019.

The new BREEAM In-Use V6 standard was embraced immediately after its launch. Vox wanted to test how the asset and its management responded to the new requirements and the additional challenges that could be implemented.

Very good and constant communication with the tenants helps the facility management team to work together in monitoring how the buildings environmental targets are achieved. It also provides useful information about the tenants’ comfort conditions and what can still be improved. Proactive maintenance policies and procedures are in place that cover exterior spaces, interior common spaces, building fabric, the HVAC systems and the BMS.

Due to the new BREEAM In-Use standard, the property management company went through a ISO 14.001 certification, set targets for reducing energy and water consumption, increasing the percentage of waste diverted from landfill, implemented a complex sustainable procurement plan, looked at accessibility and inclusive design in a more detailed and complex way (e.g. not just to make sure that spaces are accessible for people with disabilities, but also provide spaces for meditation and lactation areas).

The building’s design and construction processes were also developed in accordance with the BREEAM New Construction standard, obtaining the highest BREEAM score (86.7%) at that time (January 2019) in Romania.

The new version of the BREEAM In-Use standard reorganised and introduced new concerns about how resources are used. This includes waste management in the operational life cycle of a building and the transition to a circular economy. Resilience is also a new category in the BREEAM In-Use V6 standard that groups and adds requirements regarding how the building can respond and support its occupants and the community in case of emergencies, climate-related physical risks, social risks and opportunities, fire, security and durability risks.

The asset and its management policies and procedures obtained all credits in the Resources and Resilience categories, including all available exemplary points, both in Part 1 and Part 2. The facility management team and the owner of the building found these requirements very important and supported the implementation of the needed measures. Some features were already in place, like a large space in the underground parking for reusable construction materials. Other actions were taken as a result of the BREEAM requirements, like the social risk and opportunities assessment, made especially for the purpose of this audit and for better understanding how potential impacts on the asset may affect underrepresented social groups and how the community’s resilience can be enhanced.