The new World Trade Center Gibraltar (WTCG) represents the largest single commercial office building on the rock at 15,750 sq m. Intrinsic to the next phase of Gibraltar’s economic growth, the eight-storey development comprises of office space, retail units, data centre and a ground floor car park. Primarily located at Ocean Village on the territory’s west coast and just nine minutes south of the airport, it provides its new occupants with a world class facility in keeping with both the World Trade Center’s Association’s and British Council of Offices specifications. The state of the art facility provides its tenants with the opportunity to develop business across the globe through the World Trade Center Association.
Designed for flexibility and maximum space
Ramboll provided building services, structural, acoustics, and geotechnical engineering expertise. One of the key elements of the design brief was to accommodate any scale of business; from a one person incubator business to major high tech corporations. In order to deliver this flexibility, the Ramboll team worked closely with the Client team and Architect Morgan Carn Partnership, to design floor templates that allowed reconfiguration and adaptation of spaces to suit the individual needs of tenants, right up to the latter stages of construction and beyond. Key to this approach was the need to arrange the building’s flexible M&E design to allow tenants to configure their units to suit their individual requirements with minimal disruption.
Furthermore the slim line structural solution ensured the maximum lettable floor area whilst remaining within the restricted overall building height, imposed due to its close proximity to the airport.
Optimum user comfort and energy efficiency
As well as complying with the client’s requirement for flexibility and functionality, the design includes a significant number of passive low energy design features and renewable energy technologies, which place the building on target to achieve an “A” rated Energy Performance Certificate – A significant achievement for a highly serviced building of this nature.
Some of the many features integrated within this highly efficient building include:
- A high performance thermal envelope in combination with the use of thermal mass to reduce the building’s energy consumption and maximise internal occupant comfort
- VRF air source heat pumps incorporating heat recovery systems, used for heating and cooling
- Hot water for domestic use is generated using the waste heat from the landlords cooling system, providing free energy that would otherwise be omitted to the atmosphere
- Maximum use of natural daylight penetration
- Energy efficient LED light sources, combined with intelligent lighting controls offer user flexibility and high energy savings
- A roof mounted photo-voltaic solar panel array used to generate renewable energy on site, which will offset the need for grid supplied electricity and reduce the building’s energy costs
- Sophisticated Intelligent Building Control and Metering system that targets and monitors the air conditioning, water and electricity usage for all demises individually
- Maximised sustainable water usage, with sea water used for toilet flushing and rainwater harvesting used for irrigation of the building’s landscaping.
Resilience and connectivity
Delivering resilience to its occupants the WTCG benefits from 100% emergency standby power generation. The building also incorporates its own data centre, which will be connected directly to the new Europe-India undersea fibre-optic infrastructure, enabling trading on the major stock exchanges in milliseconds.
Inspiring interior
In addition to the commercial office space, the building features a 24 hour double-height reception, café, breakout and relaxation areas for employees and visitors. Its landscaped tree-filled atrium runs the length of the building and contains elegant water features and a glass bridge with views down from the 7th to 1st floor.
The new WTC brings a new standard to commercial premises in Gibraltar, further supporting businesses to compete on the international stage.
