GSDA

The new leisure centre developed on the site of the former Central Baths building is one part of the overhaul of Watford Council’s indoor sports facilities. The centre includes a six-lane 25m pool and learner pool together with a four-court sports hall, fitness suite, dance studio and dry change facilities. A three storey climbing wall forms a backdrop to the entrance / reception. The design demonstrates advanced low and renewable energy technologies with the energy strategy for the facility incorporating high insulation, a roof mounted solar thermal array, ground linked heat pump water and space heating, and rainwater recycling. The building has set a new benchmark standard for the environmental performance of swimming pools.

The building lives up to all our expectations, in fact surpasses them. It shouts quality, it has presence within its setting and, not least of all, it works extremely well as a leisure centre.

Cate Hall, Executive Director - Services, Watford Borough Council

Inverclyde Council’s brief aimed to provide a modern, sustainable, flexible, well equipped new primary and nursery school on the site of the old Boglestone Primary School in Port Glasgow. The new non denominational school was to consolidate the existing Highholm, Slaemuir, and Clune Park Primary Schools, and Barmoss Nursery, to accommodate 594 primary school pupils and 80/80 nursery pupils when operating at full capacity. It was the aspiration of both Inverclyde Council and the design team to provide an exceptionally high quality and environmentally responsible education facility that would nspire the children and staff that would use it on a daily basis. In response to the client’s strong sustainable agenda natural lighting and passive ventilation have been maximised in all occupied spaces.

This is an example of the whole community coming together to build an extraordinary new facility for generations of our children.

Gordon Brown, Prime Minister

Awards

SCALA Yearbook 2009

The new Gillmoss Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in Liverpool provides a high quality architectural solution to accommodate state of the art equipment which will sort 100,000 tonnes of recyclable material a year behind it’s timber clad envelope. It forms part of MWDA’s waste PFI programme and includes a range of administration and amenity accommodation, as well as a Visitor and Education Centre, and it’s large span roof structure ensures an uninterrupted floor area for the process equipment.

In response to a strong sustainable agenda the design includes for maximised natural daylighting; rainwater harvesting; and the roof has been designed to allow for the future installation of Photovoltaic panels.

The EnviRecover Facility at Hartlebury Trading Estate is planned to help Herefordshire and Worcestershire County Council achieve its Local, National and European targets for the management of its Municipal Solid Waste and is designed to incinerate around 200,000 tonnes of residual waste per annum, which would otherwise be sent to landfill. Currently under construction the facility will generate 15.5MW of electricity a year and provide a CHP link to local businesses.

An architectural language for the facility has been developed which seeks to deliver a building whose external envelope is a ‘tight’ functional fit to the processes it contains, therefore keeping its size to a minimum. By expressing the steps in section and plan required to house the buildings the visual mass of the building is visually broken up, while projecting administration blocks and columns create an inviting civic facade on the west elevation.

Close to Witton Country Park, the City Learning Centre and other local community facilities, this new 1200 pupil school was critical to the overall master plan for the area. A highly progressive educational vision, with a specialism in Design and Technology as well as Business and Enterprise demanded an imaginative and inspiring design.

The design responded to the educational vision and embraced the spectacular sloping site to create a sweeping building that provides an inspiring array of open plan learning and cellular teaching facilities. Every faculty has a variety of teaching space, allowing for flexibility on how classes are taught. In science and technology classrooms can combine in different ways that include large group demonstration for up to 90 students. The slope of the site has been exploited to give visual connectivity through the different levels, a cascade of interactive internal and external learning spaces with the landscape actively engaging with the heart of the building. The specialism subjects are celebrated at the front of the building and expressed externally through large, brightly coloured, feature windows.

Witton Park incorporates a strong environmental strategy with daylight and natural ventilation exploited throughout. The school was awarded a BREEAM rating of Excellent.

Awards

Commendation Civic Trust Award 2014

Located near Abu Dhabi’s sea port in Mussaffah the first Waste to Energy Facility in the UAE will generate 100MW of electrical power for the grid. A million tonnes of waste that would otherwise have gone to landfill will be incinerated each year for this sustainable source of energy generation.

TAQA’s brief required the architecture to showcase the Facility in a way that was inspired by Arabian culture. This is seen with its tensile roof structure evocative of a Bedouin tent and traditional Arabic patterns designed into contemporary interpretations of Mashrabiya screens for shading the Visitor’s Center and Administration Block. Staff amenities have had to be fully catered for within the development and includes a purpose built Masjid for prayer, a state of the art Waste Education Facility and Visitor Centre as well as a landscaped area planted with native shrubs and trees.

This swimming pool facility for West Lothian Council is an addition to an existing leisure centre located in Balbardie Park. It consists of an essentially standalone new building located which establishes a new frontage to the retained sports centre to which it is connected by a single circulation route. Entrance to the new building is by way of a double height entrance foyer and reception. This links directly to the retained sports facilities but also divides the new building into a swimming pool facility on one side and 8 no. external changing rooms with 500 sq.m of first floor office accommodation on the other.

The design incorporates high levels of insulation and air tightness, extensive natural daylight via rooflights and two 35m high wind turbines, part funded by the Energy Savings Trust. Funding of £0.7m was provided by Sport Scotland.

The Energy from Waste Facility at North Hykeham helps Lincolnshire County Council achieve its Local, National and European targets for the management of its Municipal Solid Waste and is designed as a CHP plant to incinerate 150,000 tonnes of residual waste.

Architecturally a curved roof 'shell' houses the tipping hall and boiler hall and softens the visual impact of the building from elevated views from Lincoln. This curved shell is intersected by a refined rectilinear form containing the other process areas which extends at roof level to create a grand colonnade that reinforces the 'civic' façade of the building where the visitor centre and administration facilities are sited.

The Watford Woodside Leisure Centre project involved the regeneration of an existing 1970s sports centre to firstly upgrade its existing dry side facilities, which included an 8 court sports hall, a fitness suite, and a range of dance studios, and secondly extend the existing building to accommodate a competitive standard 8 lane, 25m pool with a movable floor, a learner pool, spectator seating and wet change facilities.

Woodside has made a huge contribution to the sustainable agenda of Watford Borough Council as being a true low-energy exemplar of these traditionally energy demanding facilities. The approach taken has been firstly to minimise energy consumption through passive and best practice measures, and then secondly to use the potential of the sun and the earth to provide as much as possible of the remaining energy needs.

Awards

Winner of the Hertfordshire Building Futures Awards: Sustainable Building Award 2009

Winners Green Apple Award: the Built Environment and Architectural Heritage 2009

Shortlisted RICS East of England Award, Sustainability 2009

Shortlisted Sustainable City Awards Sustainable Buildings 2009

Making use of a small site, in the established Fengate Industrial Estate, the ERF currently under construction will function as a safe and cost-effective alternative to landfill treating 85,000 tonnes per annum of residual waste through a single process line.

In terms of its design the proposed Facility has been centred around a similar previously approved scheme for the same site. Through careful design and improved technology the proposed facility is altogether more efficient than the previously approved scheme. It is smaller in every notion whist simultaneously processing more waste and producing more electricity. A raking ‘red box’ formed the key design concept with the previous scheme and this has been kept albeit with further refinements made in terms of more subtle perforations, cuts and extrusions to allow the envelope to house and respond to the selected process technology contained within.

The area cries out for a buidling design that raises the bar in terms of the local vernacular and the responsible and sustainable ‘form follows function’ design approach employed will have this effect. This innovative and robust architectural solution will ensure the creation of a long lasting state of the art sustainable Energy from Waste facility for the Peterborough area.

The Bulwell Energy Park will serve as a manufacturing, research and development facility for Chinook Sciences and includes a small scale energy generation demonstration facility, office accommodation and a visitor centre.

The visual appearance and massing of the facility has been carefully considered with a golf course adjacent and residential area nearby. A ‘form follows function’ approach to the architecture has been developed to minimise the overall massing for the process enclosures such that they are a tight fit to their functional requirements and thereby volumetrically efficient. A timber overcladding is applied to selected facades of the process related buildings to further reduce their visual scale and being left naturally weathering to further soften their appearance over time. This design aesthetic is applied to all of the buildings and the timber rainscreen cladding is also applied to the Visitors and Administration building to complete the ‘family of buildings’ where the main entrance is celebrated in the form of a hooded canopy with vertically orientated brise soleil which provides both shelter and solar shading whilst also defining the civic frontage of the Energy Park.

Parc Adfer (Adfer meaning to 'recover' or 'restore' in Welsh) is Wheelabrator Technologies Inc's proposed Energy Recovery Facility (ERF) for North Wales located next to the Shotton Paper Mill on the Deeside Industrial Park. It will process 200,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste per annum to generate up to 16MW electricity, equivalent to the needs of around 30,000 homes. A small part of which will be used to power the plant. The remaining 90 per cent of the electricity will be fed into the National Grid to fulfilling the energy needs of around 30,000 homes. In addition, there is the potential to supply some local businesses with heat in the form of piped steam. By reducing the dependence on landfill Parc Adfer will reduce CO2 emissions by over 20,000 tonnes per year. The Facility will include a New Education and Visitor’s Centre that will serve to inform the general public of the benefits of sustainable electricity generation.

A refined architectural approach has been taken to minimise the volume of the facility leaving some elements of the building’s plant exposed to the elements. By minimising the building’s size and choosing cladding materials which emphasise the industrial nature of the building, the objective is for the Facility to sit discreetly within its industrial context.

The Charlton Lane Eco Park is being developed as part of a new ‘World Class Waste Solutions’ approach adopted by Surrey County Council in response to a variety of aims, which include achieving zero waste to landfill and increasing recycling rates to 70%.

The proposal replaces the existing waste transfer station facility on the site whilst retaining the existing Community Recycling Centre to provide a Gasification and Anaerobic Digestion plant which will treat a total of 100,00 tonnes of local non-recyclable waste on site to generate electricity.

The proposal sits within the greenbelt and has been designed carefully in response to this. Views from the surrounding residential areas have been mitigated where possible through a considered approach to the proportioning of the building, its roof form, materials and landscaping. Meanwhile an aesthetic which reflects the World Class Waste Solution status of the project has been adopted.

Extensive landscaping around the site will provide ecological benefits, while the application of photovoltaics to south facing roof elements will allow for additional electricity production.

The proposed Energy Recovery Facility (ERF) at the existing landfill and recycling site in Beddington, Sutton, will provide the South London Waste Partnership with a safe and cost-effective alternative to landfill and is designed as a twin line facility to treat 275,000 tonnes per annum of residual waste. It also forms part of, and will bring forward the completion and restoration of the existing landfill into green spaces and wildlife habitats.

The overall scale and massing of the facility have been minimised with the main building being treated as a refined ‘cubic’ form set within the landscape. The proposed architectural treatment is appropriate to its context, and combined with the use of non-reflective and naturally weathering high quality materials ensures it is celebrated as a state of the art waste treatment facility, and a dynamic landmark for South London.

Inverclyde Council’s proposed brief aimed to provide a modern, sustainable, flexible, well equipped new secondary school for 1100 pupils within a valley in the town of Greenock. It was the aspiration of both the client and the design team to provide an exceptionally high quality and sustainable education facility that would inspire the pupils and staff that use the school on a daily basis.

The design for the new school embraced the clients sustainable agenda and it has been calculated that the CO2 output for Inverclyde Academy is approximately half that required by Building Regulations. This unprecedented reduction has been achieved by measures which include the maximisation of daylighting and natural ventilation to occupied spaces and the installation of a 50KW wind turbine on the site.

Inverclyde Academy reflects all that is possible in education. The right environment encourages everyone and stretches them in every way.

HRH The Princess Royal, Inverclyde Academy Opening

Awards

Green Apple Award Winner 2009

Green Apple Scottish National Green Champion Award 2009

The proposed Millerhill RERC is located on the former Marshalling Yards at Millerhill in Midlothian, and is FCC Environment's proposal for the Zero Waste Edinburgh and Midlothian join authorities residual waste management contract. The facility would be capable of receiving up to 195.000 tonnes of waste each year and producing up to 11MW of electricity and 20MW of heat (which could be used in a district heating network).

Located on a 'gateway' site lying to the south of Edinburgh a 'form follows function' approach has been the base upon which a visually refined contextually appropiate design has been developed. At upper levels the largest process volumes are housed within a 'lantern' which sits upon a lower operational 'plinth' level. The 'lantern' is clad with translucent polycarbonate cladding offering subtle views of the internal process equipment and to visually lighten and soften the upper part of the building from near and distant views where its reflective properties will help blend it with the sky. At night internal operational lighting will ensure that the 'lantern' softly glows and in so doing signify its presence at night.

The site for the Tilbury Green Power facility is situated within the industrial envelope of Tilbury Docks and fronts the River Thames and the residential area of Grays. The 60MW facility will provide renewable energy from burning a combination of clean biomass, solid recovered fuel, and waste wood.

The design approach has been to inject a strong formal 'cubist' concept in massing terms: one which celebrates the difference between the verticality and horizontality of the principle buildings and which through the selection of a restricted and varied palette of cladding materials, develops a cohesive architectural language - a family of buildings.

The architectural and operational focal point of the development is the Boiler Hall which has been horizontally stratified by introducing an 'orange peel' ribbon of glazing spiralling around its elevations.

The proposed EfW at East Tullos in Aberdeen is designed to provide the Councils of Aberdeen City, Moray and Aberdeenshire with a jointly-owned energy from waste plant. Located on an industrial site in the south of the city the 150.000 tonnes per year facility will treat non-recyclable household waste from across North East Scotland and features combined heat and power (CHP) to provide energy to local households, businesses and council facilities.

The design approach embraces the opportunity for the facility to be a new landmark within the city and in response develop an imaginative and bold architectural design to celebrate the facility. The final design is made up of two architectural layers with a 3 dimensional curving 'shell' forming the upper part of the facility and a visually refined operational 'plinth' upon which the 'shell' sits. It is proposed that the 'shell' is clad in naturally finished aluminium interlocking shingles.