Date
Author
Neil Shrubb
Cambridge’s Chemistry of Health laboratory rated BREEAM ‘Excellent’
rhp’s Chemistry of Health Building for the University of Cambridge has received a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating for its highly sustainable features – no small achievement given the highly serviced nature of the facilities and context of the tight urban site.
The building, completed in 2018 and set within Cambridge’s Central Conservation Area, provides new specialist laboratories, analytical facilities, offices and meeting rooms for research groups working to combat modern pandemics such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and Type II diabetes.
Our in-house sustainability team, including a BREEAM Accredited Professional, promote low energy design strategies within our studios’ projects – leading to more sustainable building solutions, enhancing the well-being of the people who live and work in them, and helping to protect natural resources.
The project’s sustainable strategies include:
Maximising passive design features: The highly efficient design incorporates measures such as excellent fabric and glazing insulation levels, maximum natural ventilation, a high level of airtightness and control of solar heat gain while providing good levels of daylighting.
Minimising active design systems: Having reduced the energy demand, energy requirements have been minimised by installing energy efficient plant and systems. The new building utilises adiabatic cooling and the laboratories incorporate a demand control ventilation (DCV) system which monitors room air quality and adjusts the ventilation system air volumes to suit the room conditions. This system has the potential to deliver significant energy savings over conventional ventilation strategies.
Incorporating low zero carbon technologies: The building energy system includes input from a solar panel array.
Developed as a Level 2 BIM project, the priority project for the University received funding from Research England’s UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF) which is designed to support investment in higher education research facilities.
Read more about the project here.