News on 22 September 2000
The offices of Credit Suisse First Boston at Canary Wharf
were awarded top honours in both the Facilities Management Team and Purpose
Built Office categories of the BIFM’s Office of the Year Awards,
announced on Wednesday night at the Hilton hotel on London's Park Lane.
In their report the judges said that "the dimensions of the customer
base at CSFB are staggering, the quality of the building is very high
and the demands of the business lines are larger and more vocal than any
other client base [we] visited."
The global investment bank relocated to Canary Wharf in 1993. Within a
year they had expanded to occupy all 20 storeys and further acquisitions
prompted a property expansion programme – ‘Project New World’.
This combination of refurbishment and construction resulted in an office
complex which houses 6,000 people and includes two 9,750 sq m trading
floors. The Credit Suisse FM team has responsibility for a global service
and must be able to take a brief very rapidly yet be prepared to re-interpret
it as circumstances change.
For two years running the FM team has been voted the most highly regarded
support service by the business lines themselves. The Office of the Year
judges concluded that they were, "a very professional, extremely
dedicated team showing a great deal of energy and determination in an
extremely tough and changing business."
The award for an Existing Building (offices that have been re-fitted or
converted within existing buildings to the entrants requirements) went
to Standard Life’s George Street offices in Edinburgh. The judges
said that despite the restrictions of its Category A listing and historic
city centre location, "the complex requirements of trading, research
and back-office facilities, together with staff support functions have
been effectively accommodated … to provide a high quality environment
for 900 people in a building quite unable previously to meet contemporary
office needs."
The Green Award went to the offices of Canon (UK) at Reigate. These obtained
the highest BREEAM rating and incorporate a number of energy efficient
technologies, including photovoltaic cells.
The judging panel for the Office of the Year Awards was: Keith Pratt (Chairman),
MITIE Managed Services; John Alexander, Alexander & Law; John Bevan,
GMW Partnership; Ros Bryant, Dresdener Kleinwort Benson; Michael Carver,
SVM; Hugh Channon, Quadrilect; Andrew Harding, Cochrane McGregor &
Associates; David Kincaid, Bartlett Business School; Greg Koplick, Sun
Microsystems; David Levy, Options FM; Chris Lang, Thomas Cook; Paul Lupton,
Government Office for the North West; David Hogg, Select FM; Richard Sercombe,
Saqqara Consultancy; John de Lucy, CB Hillier Parker; Ian Todd.
The Awards were sponsored by ABB, Business Moves, Chesterton Workplace
Management, Desking Systems, George S Hall, Hays Rentacrate, Johnson Controls,
MITIE Group, Pitney Bowes Management Services, Planned Maintenance, Rentokil
Initial, 24seven Vending and United Business Media.
The full list of Winners (in bold) and Highly Commended entrants is:
FM Team Award
Credit Suisse First Boston, Canary Wharf
Purpose Built
Credit Suisse First Boston, Canary Wharf
BT’s Alexander Graham Bell House, Edinburgh
British American Tobacco, London
Existing Buildings
Standard Life, Edinburgh
Eversheds, Birmingham
Prudential, London
Smaller Offices
Unisys, London
Facilities Management Graduate Centre, Sheffield Hallam University
Green Award
Canon (UK), Reigate
Innovation Award
British American Tobacco, London
