Case Studies
Calling on our supply chain partners to help restore a Grade II listed building and transform it into an inspiring setting for young people to learn and develop.
This project included major structural refurbishment of the existing Rugby Radio Station building into a new educational campus to form a new teaching block, main entrance and dining hall. Two new teaching blocks for STEM and Humanities, a new Sports Hall which will include teaching areas, office accommodation and changing rooms.
Client: Urban & Civic
Value: £38.9m
Duration: 17 months
Just one week before the UK went into lockdown in March 2020, we began work on the former Grade II listed GPO Radio Transmitter building to make way for Houlton School - a unique free academy, created in order to meet the needs of the Section 106 Agreement for the 6,200 homes being built in the community.
Lockdown was only the start of the challenges during this project. Due to its Grade II listing, there was a unique complexity to the build, as we needed to restore and match centuries-old brickwork, refurbish the sprawling windows and add substantial square footage to the space without losing its history.
The project challenges were overcome by a creative mix of collaboration between all parties which meant that our specialist supply chain were able to get involved during the design phase, allowing us to lean on their expertise and innovation in listed buildings.
Straight away we met with with Historic England and the conservationists to understand the programme of works.
We brought in specialist bricklayers to help restore the brickwork and match it where possible, and where it wasn’t possible, contrasting bricks helped to maintain a visual connection to the building’s previous life.
With the designers, van Heyningen & Haward, we approached Rugby Borough Council and Historic England to explain the benefits of replacing the original windows with specially made bespoke designs that matched like-for-like, and came with high performance results - they can now be opened to mechanically and naturally ventilate the space as it’s needed.
A process called ‘quilling’ enabled us to remove historic plaster from the brick walls – which led the team to discover issues with the existing fabric and allow the experts to survey the windows properly and check for repairs.
A specialist Pavatex system was then used to insulate the walls internally – the boards consist of lime plaster bedding, wood fibre insulation and a lime plaster parge coat on top to provide air tightness. A fermacell lining provided a robust finish and maintained a voidless wall build-up that will avoid trapping moisture that could damage the historic structure.
Thanks to a collaborative effort, Houlton School was delivered on time, within budget, scoring 10/10 for customer satisfaction, whilst reinvesting £22.4 million of social value locally.
This project overcame the challenges faced during the pandemic to not only become the heart of what will become a thriving new community, but the perfect legacy to an internationally significant heritage asset.
We’ve delivered on our promise to make the history of this site part of its future. It has been possible because of the collective efforts, the collaboration, of a whole variety of partners that are invested in the transformation of Houlton and Rugby.
Incorporating the innovation of our supply chain to reduce carbon and achieve the 10 tonne challenge.
The 10 Tonne Challenge was for our project teams and supply chain to work together in order to reduce their project carbon emissions by a minimum of 10 tonnes. The main focus was to encourage greater innovation and transparency of product emissions in the supply chain and a opportunity to capture some best practice across the industry.
We worked with our supply chain partner, Selwood, in a bid to switch to a lower carbon fuel for pumping operations.
We switched to a lower carbon fuel alternative that produced approximately 90% less emissions than red diesel, improved local air quality - with a 30% reduction in emissions in N0x - and lowered particulate levels by over 86% (PM25 & PM100). Both of these pollutants are harmful to the public’s health and the environment.
The Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) we switched to, is also more sustainable as is manufactured from renewable plant matter and is a high quality alternative to diesel.
Working in collaboration with our supply chain partners, Border Steelwork Structures Ltd and Arcelor Mittal, we were able to deliver a huge embodied CO2 saving by switching materials for lower carbon alternatives.
Adhering to the typical embodied carbon benchmark for structural steel, we sourced a low carbon alternative steel for the larger sections of the building and saved an estimated 551 tonnes CO2e.
Alongside this, Border Steel found 320 tonnes of steel beams and columns from Arcelor Mittal, which are produced with arc furnace technology to significantly reduce the carbon associated with the manufacturing process - even if you take into account the shipping overseas and into the UK.
Based on the RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) benchmark, the project saved an estimated 10 tonnes CO2e with one simple change: using Hy-Ten for the reinforcement. Working in collaboration with supply chain partners Chartrange Ltd, the project sourced an alterative steel reinforcement from Hy-Ten. The Environmental Product Declaration shows the embodied carbon for the Hy-ten product to be lower than the default generic value. We also used CarboniCa to calculate the embodied carbon savings.
Working together with our supply chain
Bay Technology Centre in Swansea, completed in 2022, represents a step change in building design. Surpassing ‘net-zero’, it proves a concept to create a ‘building as a power station’ and is the first commercial facility in Wales that is energy positive in operation.
The project had a clear mandate – go beyond net-zero, to provide an energy positive building producing more energy than it consumes by utilising and integrating existing and new technologies.
Client: Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council
Value: £7.9m
Duration: 20 months
What we did:
When posed with a challenge, we lent on our supply chain partners to come up with a solution to innovatively adapt PV panels in order to help achieve the projects' objective of going beyond net zero.
The challenge:
The team developed this project from RIBA stage 1 with an outline brief in place but with no tenants secured at that point. This posed challenges for the project team as there was no definitive way of predicting the actual energy usage of the building. Furthermore, this brief was for a ‘commercially viable’ office building to achieve energy positive status. Whilst other ‘energy positive’ prototypes had been developed elsewhere, the likely energy usage and therefore generation requirements of this building were far higher and posed several challenges in identifying appropriate and efficient means of generating sufficient energy.
Our intelligent solution:
The project team held multiple workshops to discuss potential solutions to the challenge and included renewable energy experts across a range of specialties to offer advice.
Nothing was discounted and all options were explored. The team spent time analysing a recent pilot project undertaken by Swansea University which claimed to be the first energy positive office building in the UK incorporating a range of ‘new’ renewable technologies (BIPVCo photovoltaic wrap (thin film solar cells) and photovoltaic thermal tubes for electricity and heat generation).
Whilst all of these were considered, the team concluded that the scale and occupancy of the proposed technology centre deemed these unviable as the new technologies did not have the efficiency required to offset the building energy load. This led the team to investigate the highest performing market-leading renewable technologies and challenging ways that they could be adapted to meet the challenge.
Having developed an options appraisal, photovoltaic panels proved the most suitable technology, but the roof area was not sufficient to house the total requirement. However, following consultation with a specialist PV supply chain partner, we developed a feasible solution where the PV panels were integrated into the building façade design on both the South and West facades. This innovation required meticulous detailing to ensure that the panels fitted aesthetically with the building architecture and practically with the backing cladding sheets and services.
The innovation from our supply chain partners resulted in a building with 2 highly efficient ‘solar walls’ which visually blend into the building design and exports net electricity.
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