30 PROJECT REPORT: MIXED USE SCHEMES
bricks. In addition there was the challenge of conserving the wall as best as they could while minimising the cost of the process for the developer.
Energy use
Another challenge in the implementation of the project’s design was integrating services, given the highly constrained nature of the site. Tom explains: “Placing the services was difficult – pushing the rainwater tanks back without doing much deep excavation (specified in the planning process) meant that we didn’t have space for a transformer, and we had to go back and forwards a few times to ensure that we wouldn’t need one.” The architect says the team’s design was right on the threshold of regulations in terms of requiring a transformer, and as such had to retrospectively design an energy strategy to stay within the parameters. Where the original scheme utilised ground source heat pumps, the architects instead had to substitute a system with a lower electrical demand, which ended up being a communal gas air absorption heat pump. Despite this perhaps slightly less ecological specification, the team hit Code Level 4 for the homes, and received a high BREEAM score of Very Good for the commercial units. The latter however was not final, as the team only constructed an “insulated shell,” and this necessarily changed during fit out.
Enabling them to reach this target were various sustainable methods, including high U-values in the walls, high levels of airtightness with insulation tape and seals to the windows, and low water usage fittings in the bathrooms and kitchens.
Success Looking back, the architects both view the project as a “huge success,” especially in the face of its many challenges.
Simon tells me the conserved wall on the park’s side caused further issues throughout the project. There was a lot of planting, weeds and trees that had seeded between the wall and the two skins, so the team had to peel this away to expose what was left, as well as remove damaged bricks, and replace it with lime mortar and reclaimed
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“It boiled every inner city complexity into one,” says Tom. “Party wall awards, site access, ecclesiastical exemptions, conservation, drainage, contaminated soil… the list goes on.” According to Tom and Simon, however, it was all worth it, and the client was reportedly very pleased with the results. “The fact is that their units have sold, so they were obviously happy, but even far before that, the planners and the potential residents were hugely supportive of the scheme and the spaces we wanted to create,” says Tom.
“It definitely stretched us,” Simon adds, “but the result says it all.”
ADF DECEMBER 2020
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