Upfront planning goes a long way when it comes to building for sustainability. In their design for Liecester College’s new £25 million Abbey Park campus, Bond Bryan Architects utilized state-of-the-art thermal modeling software to maximize the structure’s energy efficiency, taking into consideration existing site conditions and passive building strategies such as thermal massing. As an added bonus, the building will generate some of its own power thanks to a wind turbine installed on the roof.
Bond Bryan Architects‘ design for the new Leicester campus incorporates a variety of green building techniques such strategic placement of thermal mass and building orientation, daylighting, night-time cooling, and mechanical heat recovery. The completed structure exceeds current sustainable building regulations in the area, which is an impressive feat considering the structure comprises 10,500 sq m of educational facilities five stories tall including large dance and drama performance spaces and a mixture of science, math, and humanities laboratories. It just goes to show that tried and true efficient building techniques combined with the foresight of computer modeling can go a long way towards building sustainably.
Maggie Galliers, principal of Liecester College says: “This is one of the biggest transformations of Further Education in Leicester for many years. Our Abbey Park campus will be an entirely brand new building with state of the art facilities fit for learning in the 21st century.”
