Case Studies
The following examples of pioneering developments illustrate the principles of low carbon development in a variety of contexts.
The Hockerton Housing Project is located on the outskirts of the village of Hockerton in Nottinghamshire. Completed in 1998, The Hockerton Housing Project was the UK's first earth sheltered, self-sufficient housing development.
The residents of the five houses generate their own clean energy, harvest their own water and recycle waste materials, thus eliminating pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. These houses are amongst the most energy efficient dwellings in Europe.
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Designed by Stride Treglown Architects, this scheme comprises 12 houses for the private market. Its objective was to prove that green design can be both inspirational and affordable. The aims were to achieve a 75 per cent reduction in CO2; a 50 per cent reduction in water use; to use 50 per cent recycled materials; to have a positive economic impact; and to produce healthy buildings. The houses use ‘Warmcell' insulation, have south-facing sun-spaces and solar water heating.
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Upton Park, and urban extension to Northampton achieved EcoHomes excellent for a significant number of residential units. It enabled investment in green infrastructure through re-investment of land value gains. The development integrated sustainable drainage techniques as well as high fabric efficiency standards and photovoltaic cells amongst other measures.
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Though completed as long ago as 2002, and not without controversy, BedZED is still one of the most ambitious and comprehensive Low Carbon developments that illustrates what successful low carbon development can achieve. BedZED was designed by Bill Dunster Architects and is located in Wallington, South London. It is a sizable development comprising 100 homes, community facilities and workspaces. The development allows people to live sustainably, without sacrificing a modern, urban lifestyle. BedZED dwellings do not have conventional heating systems and consumption of heat, electricity and water are reduced considerably.
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The flagship Okehampton Business Centre, developed and managed by West Devon Borough Council with funding from the South West RDA, is one of the most sustainable and environmentally friendly of its type in the region. The building is expected to save up to 50 tonnes of carbon emissions each year through the unique way it has been designed. The building is naturally ventilated, is designed to maximize daylight, features a biomass boiler a 6 kW wind turbine and a 8.6 kWp (kilowatt peak) PV array.
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Sustainability is a key plank of the National Trust's philosophy, and this office building meets high-quality benchmarks for sustainable design. The office consists of a two-storey, deep-plan building with the main public elevation, internal layout and roof all orientated to face due north-south to control solar gain and daylighting. The roof pitch of 30 degrees maximises the output of the photovoltaic panels. Rooflights are placed on the north-facing side of the pitched roof, and photovoltaics panels are cantilevered off the south side, providing shading to the rooflights and limiting high solar gains. At 1,300 m2 the array is one of the largest in the country and provides up to 15 per cent of the total electrical load of the building.
First-floor voids bring daylight from the rooflights to the ground floor, and two courtyards allow ventilation into the centre of the deep plan. To provide thermal mass for summer night-time cooling, the roof is formed from 80 mm thick exposed pre-cast concrete panels with high levels of insulation. Two thirds of the office can be directly roof lit. Artificial lighting is controlled by detectors and dimmers, keeping electrical energy for lighting to an absolute minimum.
The building is predominantly naturally ventilated, using stack effect. Air is introduced through automatic opening windows and panels. The windows are at high level and can be left open at night without compromising security. In a well-insulated and well-sealed building, roughly half of heat loss in winter is due to ventilation for fresh air. In winter, 70 per cent of heat of exhaust air is recovered by a heat recovery system.
The building was designed to achieve a BREEAM rating of ‘excellent' and was the winner of the RIBA Sustainability Award 2006.
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This 34,000 m2 office development cost £80 million and was designed by Broadway Malyan and completed in 2003. It consists of an array of 3-storey buildings, built around a meandering ‘street' space. Cooling loads are very high due to the powerful supercomputers used for meteorological forecasting. The building has a mixed mode ventilation system with ‘TermoDeck' exposed concrete structure and triple glazing. Each floor has individual control over heating and cooling coils.
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Woking is a key example of a well established low-carbon development. It has saved 70 per cent of CO2 emissions in its operations through decentralised energy generation (PV and gas CHP) linked into private heat and power networks. It is an unusual example in so far as most of their low carbon measures were applied as retro-fit. However it is obligatory for any new development near the Company's sites to connect into their district heating and cooling network.
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