Bee House team flying high as it wins Best Commercial Development Award

We’re buzzing that the Bee House has been named the Best Commercial Development at this year’s OxPropFest Awards. Huge congratulations to the entire project team for their involvement in the creation of this state-of-the-art flexible workspace, right from the initial concept ideas to the design, construction, management and more.

We would also like to especially thank SRA Architects for writing the submission and UK Property Forums for presenting the awards and hosting an extremely enjoyable evening of industry celebrations.

The Bee House: A closer look

The concept for the Bee House was born from  the fact that the humble, hardworking and energetic bee was chosen as Milton Park’s spirit animal and further cemented by the discovery that the what3words location square for the Hive Café is ///feasted.cloud.honeybees.

With this in mind, the overarching aim for the Bee House was to provide an inspiring and exciting work and social hub for the wider Park where people could feast in the brand-new café, work in the cloud and collaborate like busy bees.

From a practical perspective, design, architecture and construction teams were tasked with reinventing the existing building, originally home to IT firm RM, to enhance its operational efficiency, boost its presence on the Park and give it a new lease of life all while keeping flexibility, innovation and sustainability at its core.

With most of the existing building fabric in good condition, it provided the opportunity for a highly sustainable construction process, re-using the existing structure and materials as much as possible, avoiding unnecessary waste and demolition.

The three key design features selected to address the main areas for improvement from the existing building and to achieve the Bee House vision were to:

• Enhance the existing entrance and reception area to ensure visitors feel welcomed and a sense of community
• Install lightwell focal points to introduce natural light into the central communal spaces
• Provide a landscaped outdoor space that prioritises nature and pedestrians

Additionally, in the surrounding outdoor space, ASA Landscape Architects worked hard to produce an extensive sustainable urban drainage system (SUDs) consisting of specially designed garden spaces and bioretention swales to promote unique ecosystems of biodiversity. Electric vehicle (EV) points including fast-chargers are also accessible on the outside of the building as well as secure bike parking areas to promote sustainable travel to the Bee House.

Philip Campbell, Commercial Director at MEPC Milton Park, said: “We’re thrilled that the Bee House has been recognised as the Best Commercial Development at this year’s OxPropFest Awards. It’s been a huge collective effort to make this vision become a reality and this win is testament to the hard work of everyone involved in each stage this project.

“The Bee House is a highly innovative development at Milton Park in terms of sustainability and flexible mixed-use, that’s already buzzing with companies and individuals using the space. We look forward to welcoming even more people through our different memberships so they too can enjoy this state-of-the-art flexible workspace that we’re really proud to have at Milton Park.”

Congratulations to the full project team: ASA Landscape Architects, Ashdown Philips, B&NES-Building Control, Barnwood Limited, CBRE, Hadland Manning Bullock, Mainer Associates, QODA Consulting, Savills, SRA Architects LLP, Stantec and Terence O’Rourke.

Well done to all the other category winners too, including Mills & Reeve, Best Law Firm of the Year, the category sponsored by Milton Park.

If you’re interested in memberships for the Bee House or want to know more about the Hive Café, please visit: www.bee-house.co.uk