Buschow Henley’s St John’s Therapy Centre, Clapham procured through NHS LIFT

Source: BD 16 Feb 2007

• Vision of Redcar + Cleveland Council to regenerate Redcar by creating new Leisure and shopping hub in the Links area
• Development with Persimmon  won in competition
• Masterplan based around creation of a link Axis from Church to Waterfront
• Apartments to waterfront
• Housing behind apartments
• Public zone on eastern edge of the site, to include Extreme Sports, Bingo, Visitor Centre, Leisure Centre, Pub, Shops, Medical Centre, Parking, etc
• Previous schemes by Carey Jones (visitor centre)  and Limbrick (leisure centre) have been abandoned. New schemes developed by P+HS Architects
• Planning Application submitted mid 2006
• Early schemes involved the development of the Brief, which had been basic and incomplete
• Early elevation design created issues with Planning Authority and a number of issues were explored further and refined.
• Concepts for revised elevations follow Marine theme
• Curving roof
• Fin walls omitted
• Local material – brick and render
• Durable materials at ground floor to limit effects of vandalism
• Sporting Consultants involved to confirm brief and functional requirements.
• No views into sporting areas from outside impact on elevations
• P+HS keen to maintain high quality of design for when the scheme reaches Construciton phase, e.g carry out early detail design as part of pre-tender works.
• AT future review on maintaining design integrity through detailing will be useful

[Image taken from Building Design Issue 1753]

Architects with a project that would benefit from a bio-energy installation should note that Defra has just announced a 10-week grant application window for biomass-fuelled heat and CHP projects. Grants are intended to help bridge the cost differential between bio-energy and a fossil fuel alternative and range from £25,000 to £1m.

This is the third funding round of the £10-15m Bio-energy Capital Grants Scheme, which was announced by the government last year as part of its response to a report from its Biomass Task Force, and is open to the industrial, commercial and community sectors (including local authorities and schools).
The grant application window will close on 9 March 2007.

For more information 

• Its a Canon, so should be idiot proof!
• Gill has created a log, which will be used in both offices, to log out/in the camera. Once you’ve used it, it must be returned.
• Use your best judgement, when you return the camera, if it needs charged or not. Since its not held on a dock, its not automatically charged, so check when you return it, or before you intend to take it out (incase the user before you ignored the rules). It only takes an hour or so to fully charge the battery.
• As with every digi camera, there are a few settings that alter the size of the image file. In order to preserve Mr Hatcher’s sanity, I’ve already set both cameras up so that the images are fairly small, 100kb or so…unless you intend to use the images for presentation, do not change the settings or we’ll overload the server PDQ!
• Images are transferred to your PC by USB cable, which will be kept with the charger, etc.
• There are basic instructions in a paper copy manual with both cameras, but a CD with more details manuals in PDF.

GREEN GRANTS FOR HOMES

Funding to subsidise domestic installation of renewables has failed to meet demand, leading the government to divert cash set aside for other programmes.The DTI set up the Low Carbon Buildings programme to replace its Clear Skies programme. The programme allocated £80m over the next three years to boost the use of technologies such as solar and wind power. However, the £3.5m allocated for homes over the 2006-07 financial year was fully allocated within just five months.

BIOMASS

The greatest CO₂ saving is from CHP fuelled by biomass
This second part of the AJ renewables series explores biomass and combined heat and power (CHP). Today, CHP is typically gas-fired, while a biomass boiler usually generates just heat, but there may be an overlap in multi-fuel projects and also in the future we may see biomass-fired CHP, operating at a larger scale with the heat going to district heating. So looking at them together now seems sensible.

Low and zero-carbon technologies, such as CHP, and renewable energy sources, such as biomass fuels, will increasingly be used to improve building performance beyond the current Building Regulations.

Architects Journal. 16 November (Pg. 38-40)

Ground Source Heat Pumps

The third part of the AJ renewables series looks at ground-source heat-pump (GSHP) systems and their rising popularity.  The rapid increase in the use of ground-source energy for building heating and cooling systems in the UK is a relatively recent phenomenon; however, there are more than 900,000 installations in the US and 500,000 on the continent.

The fuel efficiency of a GSHP system in heating mode can be 50-70% higher than the most efficient gas boiler and cooling efficiency can be 20-40% greater than alternative air-cooled technologies. This produces corresponding year-round carbon emission reductions and accounts for the current intense interest in GSHP systems.

Installation costs tend to be higher than with more conventional systems, hence the historic market resistance to the technology, but the value equation has recently shifted considerably as legislators have moved to target CO₂ reduction.

Article looking, in depth, at this method of achieving a reduction in CO₂ generation.
Architects Journal. 23 November (Pg. 44-46) 
 

CIBSE green guide
‘TM38: Renewable energy sources for buildings’, gives guidance to developers, planners, designers and building owners to enable them to consider integrated renewable energy systems at this early stage. The guidance helps to identify the most appropriate low or zero carbon (LZC) energy solutions for buildings and/or developments based on users requirements.

TM38: Renewable energy sources for buildings. CIBSE, 2006. http:///www.cibse.org/index.cfm?go=publications.view&PubID=348&S1=y&L1=0&L2=0

Older Persons landscaped courtyard garden accessed from Day/Dining room

Testing Testing….

As Tom threatened last week, photos are required of all of us (yikes) to put on the blog site…Geraldine has asked that I arm myself with a camera and aim it at you all…..which hopefully means I dont need a photo taking, and the results wont be subject to too much photoshopping.

Anyway, I’ll try and arrange some time next week, so all the boys get your hair and makeup sorted.