News Visually documenting the Black & White Building
The recently opened Black and White Building in Shoreditch is the tallest mass timber office to be constructed from the ground up in central London. Our cutting-edge bespoke camera system was in prime position throughout to visually document the construction of the innovative ultra-sustainable building.
This new landmark in sustainable architecture is the result of a collaboration between design-led workspace specialist The Office Group (AKA TOG) and timber-build specialists Waugh Thistleton Architects. It is the first TOG Work Space the company has built from scratch and it has garnered plenty of praise and attention, featuring in design publications such as Wallpaper, Dezeen and Enki.
The Build of the Black and White Building
Designed by Waugh Thistleton Architects, this ground-breaking seven-storey office space in the heart of London’s tech scene has achieved net zero carbon in construction and use. With so much innovation involved, it was important for TOG to fully capture progress on this sustainable, boundary-pushing workspace that uses modern methods of construction and off-site construction.
Beyond the concrete on the ground floor slab, the cross-laminated timber building was constructed entirely from timber from renewable sources. The state-of-the-art timber structure combines fully exposed cross-laminated and glue-laminated beams, whilst the CLT framed structure is wrapped in a timber-louvre curtain wall providing solar shading as the external ‘skin’ of the building.
The 17.8 metre tall, 4,480-square-metre Black & White Building is constructed from prefabricated components that were precision-engineered to be slotted together. With the circular economy a key consideration, this means the building can be dismantled rather than demolished at the end of its life, with its materials reused.
How Time-Lapse Systems captured construction
To ensure the best possible capture of this complex logistical and historically restricted central London site our experienced engineers had to pinpoint the optimal viewing point in a tight urban space. This was achieved through communication with the client and through a site visit, so despite the challenging environment, our engineers located and securely mounted our bespoke camera system.
Our in-house editors then took over – remotely micromanaging the capture to ensure the best documentation of this ground-breaking build. As always, they communicated effectively with the client so that we could also provide rapid capture for periods of intense on-site activity. Our camera system reported the full construction process, from work on the concrete ground floor slab to the frame build and wrapping of the new building.
The benefits of time-lapse capture
Our time-lapse camera system visually captured the innovative construction processes involved in building the seven-storey Black and White Building. These reported images provided a full visual documentation of the scheme which could be used for numerous purposes including communicating within the team and with the wider public.
Our bespoke viewing portal iRis 4.0 allowed team members located in numerous locations access to remotely monitor real-time and archived footage. Reporting of this project with its highly complex logistical challenges and numerous third-party consents meant that site monitoring and archival visual documentation could be used to ensure the project ran smoothly and that any discrepancies during the build (or in the future) could be visually analysed.
The time-lapse capture was also used for marketing purposes. Throughout the build, our editing team created monthly update edits and when requested further edits for the marketing team at TOG. The Office Building plc has been active in using our time-lapse footage as part of a wider marketing campaign which includes videos, social media, and website content. Our time-lapse video edit was included in TOG’s behind-the-scenes story on the Black and White Building. We are currently working on the final fully post-produced video edit for TOG, which will showcase the full construction process of the Black and White Building.
Built to the highest sustainability standards and offering a vision for future workspaces, the Black and White Building is a forward-thinking project that we are delighted to have captured. We at Hideaway Media Ltd, Time-Lapse Systems are pleased to have been involved in documenting such an important and unique sustainability project in Central London. We are passionate about carbon zero projects, so however large or small a project, please feel free to get in touch to explore what we can offer.