Examples of Sustainable Design

Ecocore: A New Concept of 21st Century Garden Centres
Concept Design and Energy Audit
Ecocore™ is about sustainability in terms of its operating systems. The energy used to heat and power the centre utilises woodchips fed into a combined Heat and Power plant. The woodchips are available from coppiced harvested woodland, and waste wood from free cutting which is now largely expensively tipped into landfill sites. Solar Panels on the roof produce additional electricity and integral wind turbines are used to power pumps to recycle water captured from the roofs and hard surfaces. The roofs on either side of the central glasshouse are grass covered to increase biodiversity, improve thermal insulation, and reduce water runoff from the buildings. The car park itself is topped with a deck upon which poly tunnels are erected to establish a food cooperative run as a consortium between the Garden Centre and the local community to produce salad, fruit and some bedding plants for use for sale in the Garden Centre and for local requirements.

In November 2004 Ecocore™ won First Prize in the Best Shopping Centre up to 8,000m² Category at the World Retail Exhibition, MAPIC in Cannes, France. ‘What the Judges and International Customers find so appealing about Ecocore™ is its blend of sustainable technology and its lifestyle retail environment appeal.’

Commercial Office Refurbishment, Croydon
Concept Design, Installation and Project Management of Building Services
The project comprised of the upgrade of the building services associated with a 1960’s office building and the construction of an extension block.
The existing gas fired heating system was removed and replaced with an air source heat pump installation to provide heating and comfort cooling throughout the year. The result of this was the existing gas supply to the building was removed, reducing reliance on this particular fossil fuel at building level.

The resulting reductions in energy usage and operational costs provided a payback within the guidelines of the Building Regulation Part L requirements. There was a similar reduction in the carbon footprint for the building and the business.

A feasibility study for roof mounted solar panels to heat domestic hot water was also carried out, however the hot water demand did not satisfy the investment required.

Government Office Building, Cheltenham
Concept Design, Installation and Project Management of Building Services
A 1.1million square foot sustainable office development with major data centre. Winner of PFI Project of the Year. BREEAM Rating ‘Very Good’.

The concept design of this development was based on a passive solar contribution to office heating and lighting. The building fabric and façade was extensively thermally modelled to ensure that in winter the sun would heat the building interior and in summer the façade would provide sufficient shading to ensure overheating would not occur. The façade would also ensure that daylighting was the primary source of light to reduce the electrical demands.

Comfort cooling of the offices was based on the use of exposed surfaces and building fabric to retain coolth from night time ventilation cooling strategies. All mechanical ventilation systems incorporated energy recovery.

The resulting office building had significantly lower energy requirements than traditional buildings of a similar use.