Office conversion in St Werburghs
Working with Brilliant Energy consultants to advise Ashley Vale Action Group, a community group in inner-city Bristol who redeveloped a brownfield site into a community of 20 self-build houses.
A 1960s office block on the site has provided an opportunity for conversion to apartments. We were appointed to advise on options for the upgrade of the building envelope, consisting of poorly insulated concrete panels and large glazed elevations, principally north-facing.
We established a baseline thermal study of the existing building and an option appraisal for upgrades to the building fabric and windows and reducing fenestration based on computer models to establish the most cost effective way to super-insulate the building while providing optimum light levels within the dwellings. The study showed that a biomass community heating system would be most cost effective with a new highly insulated building envelope and reduced glazing to the north.