STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS 43


© Midland Heart


supply chain with the minimum amount of energy and fuel consumption possible. As the project began to take shape, in the form of a group of 12 new homes built using fabric fi rst principles, Midland Heart, which is an advocate of traditional construction methods, embraced tried and tested cavity wall construction. Being a traditional method, they understood that this system would deliver the desired thermal effi ciency, but without reinventing the wheel.


Cementing concrete’s low carbon credentials


Project 80 is providing defi nitive proof that concrete can play a crucial role in contemporary, sustainable housebuilding. It’s also proving there’s more to meeting sustainability requirements than ‘upfront’ embodied carbon. That’s not all, the manufacturing process of the blocks used (Besblock’s Universal Star Performer in this case), helped Midland Heart achieve homes that met the design brief’s 80% carbon reduction target, providing signifi cant embodied carbon savings. Cured by energy from a nearby waste wood facility, using biomass boilers, the products used had


ADF JANUARY 2025


signifi cantly lower embodied carbon values than equivalent products. The use of SustainaCem cement, a pre-blended sustainable binder, and blocks cured using energy from a nearby waste wood facility, also kept embodied emissions low, further reinforced by a local supply chain. Tony Hopkin concluded: “Project 80’s vision has been to deliver high-performing but low-impact homes that are tailored closely to resident needs. Technology and sustainability have been at the heart of this development to improve effi ciency, but the fabric of the building was the starting point that needed to be addressed. “Blockwork, whether concrete or aircrete, has very impressive whole- life carbon qualities which are often overlooked, but they are truly circular products that embody the core principles of reduce, reuse, and recycle. In partnering with Besblock and H+H, we discovered sustainable products that could adapt and fl ex according to the other low-carbon components selected, with the result that we were able to achieve homes fi t for the Future Homes Standard.”


Article submitted by MPA Masonry WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK


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