YY London

• Client: Skanska
• Sector: Mixed-use scheme
• Services: Firestopping & Commercial Decorating
• Region: Canary Wharf
• Size: 415,000 sq. ft
• Project Value: £135 million

Project Overview

Canary Wharf is one of the busiest and buzziest parts of London. Since the late 1980s, this section of the old docklands has been completely revitalised and is now home to many illustrious companies and their workers. 

Thousands of those people walk every day past the YY London building on their way from the Canary Wharf tube station to their places of business. In recent years, they will have watched the progress of a substantial refurbishment of the 11-storey structure, whose official address is 30 South Colonnade. 

Sentinel, London’s leading specialist decorating and fire protection sub-contractor, was selected by main contractor Skanska to deliver its expertise on this prestigious and high-profile project.  

We fireboarded the structural steel beams, firestopped the penetrations, and completed commercial decorating throughout the building.  

This was a project with a host of challenges, which tested our extensive expertise in specialist decorating and firestopping.  

It was also a project that was close to our heart because of its focus on sustainability. Sentinel is always strongly aligned with partners who lead sustainable construction, and this was a key consideration in the redevelopment of YY London.  

The intention was to create an all-electric building during the process of renovating what used to be the European headquarters of Thomson Reuters.  

One of the stated aims of the project was that the well-being of people using or visiting the building should be a priority. Following the site’s transformation, the building’s overall energy demand was reduced by 62 per cent.  

Renovating the building, rather than demolishing it, is also estimated to have saved 10,260 CO2e – that’s the equivalent of 3,800 flights from London to Sydney. 

Project Brief

YY London markets itself as the workplace of tomorrow. For countless commuters to the thriving commercial hub that is Canary Wharf, it was for many years a landmark of yesterday.  

This was one of the first buildings constructed on the estate when development started at the beginning of the 1990s. It became famous for its 100-metre news ticker that greeted commuters with headlines and latest stock prices.  

The name YY London comes from the distinctive Y-shaped structures that surround the ground floor façade of the newly refurbished site. This is now a sustainable modern workplace that features rooftop gardens and terraces and over 400,000 square feet of high-quality commercial space.  

Following the redesign by Buckley Gray Yeoman, that façade has been re-clad to allow as much natural light into the building as possible. It comes with high-performance solar coatings to allow less air through and to reduce the amount of energy used inside the building.  

On the roof, you’ll find photovoltaic panels, while heat inside the building is provided by an air-source pump, with waste heat redirected. Ventilation and energy are monitored, controlled and analysed so that they are optimised and keep energy consumption to a minimum.  

The fire protection solutions and commercial decorating services delivered by Sentinel needed to support the overall push for sustainability throughout the building.  

Challenges / Solution

Only a specialist decorating contractor with extensive experience could have coped as comfortably as Sentinel did with the complexities of the work required from us at YY London.  

Throughout the development steel beams needed passive fire protection treatment in the form of fireboarding. Our firestopping team also had to work on the penetrations to ensure optimal performance, while remaining conscious of the need to respect the need to keep energy consumption to a minimum.  

Our specialist decorators were also on hand to deliver their top-class work across all storeys of the building, with the emphasis on a high-quality finish.  

One element of our work was the application of intumescent paint to the structural steel. This is a specialist protective coating which expands at high temperatures. That expansion forms a robust layer that insulates the surface of the steel.  

In the event of a fire, the steel is protected in a way that allows people within the building the time to leave safely and gives firefighters the opportunity to bring the blaze under control.  

This was a complicated and demanding job. Sentinel demonstrated why we are seen as the UK’s preferred specialist decorating and firestopping contractor by responding to challenges daily throughout the project.  

Issues needed to be addressed and resolved promptly so that the overall project stayed on schedule. It’s satisfying to be able to report that this was achieved to our satisfaction, and that of our client.  

The Result

Throughout Sentinel, there is a profound sense of pride in the work our teams delivered on the YY London project.  

This was a flagship development in a prominent part of the capital that offered us the opportunity to showcase our excellence in commercial decorating and fire protection. 

It also offered the chance to show our operatives’ diligence and commitment when solving problems and meeting deadlines.  

The end result was a fantastic decorative finish to both the metal decking and steelwork, complementing the firestopping measures applied throughout. 

We are also delighted that the building achieved so many of the sustainability markers it aimed for. Specifically, YY London has been certified BREEAM Outstanding, WELL platinum enabled, with platinum ratings on both the SmartScore and WiredScore scales.