Sustainability can
be a nebulous concept in the first place; so how do you go about measuring
it? Two well known metrics - Passivhaus
and BREEAM - offer widely differing approaches.
 |
| R H Partnership have just completed a design proposal for an Enterprise Centre that is intended to achieve both the Passivhaus standard and the highest possible BREEAM ’Outstanding’ rating. |
For more details follow the link below...
Passivhaus :
The beauty of the Passivhaus
Standard is that it focuses exclusively on energy conservation. Offsetting your carbon emissions using
renewable energy is not allowed. To pass
the standard, the designer needs to concentrate on the fundamentals: insulation,
air tightness and optimal glazing. This
rigorous approach is refreshingly simple (but not simplistic). It is also easy to check whether the
completed project meets the standard, once it is up and running.
BREEAM :
BREEAM is far more
complex, with a core guidance document running in excess of 400 pages. It looks at carbon emissions rather than
energy, but also addresses good management, water consumption, bio-diversity, transport,
pollution, longevity etc etc. Whilst this
holistic approach is excellent, the systems of measurement are very much open
to debate.
R H Partnership
have just completed a design proposal for an Enterprise Centre that is intended
to achieve both the Passivhaus standard and the highest possible BREEAM rating
of ’Outstanding’.
BREEAM is currently
lacking, in that it does not yet look in detail at carbon emissions relating to
construction. To address this deficiency,
the design proposals went even further than BREEAM and used a ‘carbon
calculator’ to assess all the key building elements.
For more
information please contact our practice sustainability advisor – Alex Reeve.
