Office Buildings - New Build

VOSA set the team the challenge of producing an office building that provided a better working environment for the staff and that was more sustainable than a standard test station, preferably with an ‘Excellent’ BREEAM rating, within the budget constraints of a normal test station.

 

The Test Station Office in Bristol is the exemplar project that brings together the teams understanding and approach developed over that period. The occupiers find the building easy to manage and they enjoy flexible climate control. The increased areas of open plan enable co-operation and communication between separate operating teams that has improved far beyond their expectations.

 

The design of this office was conceived by the Architect and Services Engineer to consume as little energy as possible, by carefully selecting the orientation and using passive techniques. Their efforts have been rewarded by achieving BREEAM Excellent and an EPC rating of A. Natural ventilation is achieved with a combination of manual and automatic opening windows, supported by chimneys to provide a “stack effect”, thus increasing the performance of the ventilation. With the exposed concrete slab, night time purging can be carried out, cooling the structure for the following day. Using high thermal mass, rainwater harvesting, photovoltaic cells and materials selected from the ‘BRE Green Guide’, this is an excellent example of the move to greener buildings based upon the evidence of better performance and reduced costs in use.

 

The project  won the South West Built Environment Awards 2008 Integration and Collaborative Working Award, and went on to win again in this category  at the National Constructing Excellence Awards later in the year. It won a British Council for Offices (BCO) Award for the South West in 2009. For additional information please download the VOSA Test Station Office Bristol Report (3.5MB)