16 SUSTAINABILITY & ENERGY EFFICIENCY Ruth Slavid reports on... Rosebowl
The main building is U-shaped, with the bowl of the lecture theatre as its centrepiece
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IF YOU USE A CHECKLIST OF OBVIOUS SUSTAINABLE FEATURES TO LOOK AT THE STRIKING ROSEBOWL BUILDING WHICH SHEPPARD ROBSON HAS DESIGNED FOR LEEDS METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY, YOU WILL BE DISAPPOINTED. YOU WILL SEARCH IN VAIN FOR A SOLAR PANEL, FOR A GREEN ROOF, AND CERTAINLY FOR ONE OF THOSE ANNOYING LITTLE WINDMILLS BUZZING AROUND TO LITTLE AVAIL.
his was deliberate policy. ‘We were very wary of greenwash,’ said Alex Solk, associate at Sheppard Robson. ‘The university is a true green university. We wanted to put technology in that would work for the building and would pay back. This shows that without windmills or photovoltaics, we can achieve a really low carbon building.’
The building has a BREEAM excellent rating, and very low carbon emission rates – well below those specified by the new Part L which came in about a year after design work started. With a notional building scoring 36kg of carbon per m2
, and a target of 26,
this building actually hit 16. It was, said Solk, ‘probably overkill’. But with introduction of both the new Part L and the European Energy Performance Directive for Buildings looming, ambition was the right way to go.
The university gave the architect other targets to meet in addition to sustainability. Chief among these was a civic presence. The building houses the faculty of business and law, and was the first phase of a move from out of town to a new campus opposite the town’s Grade II listed civic hall. The new building provides the fourth side to a courtyard, and the intention was to continue the civic space inside the new building.
The design solution is a U-shaped building, wrapping round the ‘rosebowl’ itself, an elevated circular structure that contains the lecture theatres. Unusually, given the function, this element is clad in glass, but it is in fact opaque glass – the architect chose the material to tie in with the rest of the building. Supported on Y- shaped steel elements, the bowl both expresses the main function of the building, and provides a strong visual response to the civic hall.
Entrance to the building is below the bowl, which is raised up two storeys. The surrounding building is four storeys high, and is steel framed with curtain walling which is a mixture of glazing and stone panels. Sheppard Robson’s Mark Petersen, who led the project, said, ‘We used very thin stone panel elements from Stone Panels. The stone was just 2cm thick, glued on to ‘space age’ insulation made from aluminium. The panels were so light they could be put in place by two people off a mobile platform.’
But the glazing was just as important. In all the classroom areas, this goes from floor to ceiling, to maximise natural daylight. Natural daylight of course cuts down on the daylight demand, but raises the issue of solar shading. The south-facing wall has a 1.5m deep cavity to deal with this, with a metal mesh inside it which provides solar shading.
Y-shaped steel supports lift up the lecture theatre, with entrance below it. It provides a strong response to the civic hall
The impression is of a
straightforward contemporary building, with no specifically ‘green’ language
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