About the project
'The global objective is to demonstrate that tertiary buildings from the post-war pre-energy conscious era, can be refurbished economically, with improvements in energy performance that lead to lower life-cycle CO2 emissions than the original building, or an equivalent new building. Thus refurbishment would make a significant contribution towards the EU policy of meeting the Kyoto protocol.'
Scope
The work focuses upon the refurbishment of six buildings:
- one hospital
- one educational buildings
- and four office buildings
All have the common characteristics of poor insulation standards, an over-provision of glazing, inefficient plant, and degraded fabric. The local design teams will develop refurbishment packages of fabric and system improvements, aimed at improving energy performance, whilst simultaneously addressing the problem of fabric degradation and the quality of the internal environment. They will include both ‘design-based’ solutions, which may involve re-modelling and re-organisation, and ‘product-based’ solutions that will apply innovative products newly available from industry. The OFFICE design manual will be used as a basis.
Life-cycle analysis
A procedure for life-cycle analysis will be developed early in the project to assist the prioritising of various environmental measures. The methodology will also be extended to populations of buildings, enabling building owners to assess the impact of broadly similar refurbishment strategies on their building stock. By carrying out a CO2 emissions budget, they will be able to test their building stock renewal and refurbishment programme against the Kyoto commitment.
Scientific Committee
A major component of the work will be the support offered to the local design teams by the Scientific Committee, mainly through the activity of the Design Forums using the OFFICE design manual, where participants and invited experts meet to expose the current stage of the local projects. As well as peer review of the design proposals, the Scientific Committee will act as broker for specialist consultation – for example computer simulation or physical modelling.
Monitoring and Reporting
All buildings will be monitored, both technically and socially. The results will allow a critical assessment to be made of the success of the measures to meet their targets, and will assist in main dissemination task, the revised Design Guide for Refurbishment.