The processes needed to achieve sustainable design, material selection and construction are no different to those required to achieve any other aspect of good design. They rely on an understanding of the issues, an ability to respond to site and client specifics and a wider understanding of the cultural, regulatory and technical context.
Sustainable construction as a process has a set of simple goals: minimise waste on and off site; reuse materials and make use of reused or recycled materials; avoid the use of complex components that are difficult to recycle at the end of life; and choose construction systems that can actually be delivered by local operatives either through existing or by introducing new skill sets.
Design is a holistic process that seeks to create the best solution across a broad range of requirements, which includes social and economic sustainability as well as environmental responsibility. A good designer will always look first at exploiting the opportunities of the site and the client's brief to produce a building which, as far as possible, works passively to minimise energy and resource use. The next step is to design in technologies that minimise resource demand, that are appropriate to the site, the building occupants’ needs and their capacity to manage and operate them. Designing to allow future flexibility, changes of use, easy maintenance and eventual disassembly and reuse will lengthen the useful life of a building and minimise its impact at the end of its life.
EAUC-Scotland's Sustainable Construction Topic Support Network (TSN) is open to all, providing an opportunity for those working in or with the further and higher education sector to share ideas and questions and to get together to hear from particular speakers or discuss topics of interest. Find out more about the TSNs here.
With a 10 year construction programme about to start, UCL took a new approach to managing deliveries on its heavily constrained Bloomsbury campus
The sensitive and beautiful restoration of historic Drake’s Place Gardens and Reservoir, and development of related activities, has been undertaken with - rather than for...
In 2014/15 investments of £2.1m have covered a range of technologies and buildings, including plant replacement (boilers and chillers), lighting upgrades including main campus...
The street lighting infrastructure at Heriot-Watt University’s Edinburgh Campus included several hundred high pressure sodium (SON) lamps with ageing control gear.
Crome Court is UEA’s newest and most energy-efficient accommodation block. The BREEAM Excellent project came in £800,000 under budget, and as one of the first projects in...
The Brighton Waste House is the first permanent carbon negative public building in Europe to be constructed from approximately 90% waste and surplus material
The Bright Building is a unique sustainable building using innovative construction techniques and technologies
In 2013, 50 Shakespeare St was a building on death’s door. It was built in 1887, damaged during the war and butchered by decades of use by the local council as a registry...
A guide to enable you to undertake a walk-through survey, to help identify ways to improve your organisation's energy efficiency
Energy efficiency and carbon saving advice for the further and higher education sector.
Presentation from the Sustainable Campus Excellence Awards 2015, University of British Columbia.
A computer room used by the Faculty of Science and Technology at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge had its aging air conditioning system replaced with two Cool-phase systems
The first Cool-phase New Generation install was at Avondale Park Primary School on August 20th 2013
Monodraught’s Cool-phase systems in the Science Lecture Room at Bournemouth University provide intelligently controlled low energy ventilation and natural cooling
One new COOL-PHASE unit has been installed in the ICT Room at Alderman Knight School to provide natural cooling within the area.
In partnership with the Department for Education and the Department for Energy and Climate Change, Salix is launching a research pilot project for a limited amount of...
The Matter of Landscape: Sustainable design strategies for RMIT City Campus A series of complimentary project-based teaching and learning initiatives across the RMIT...
Legal update for EAUC Members (June 2015).
North Hertfordshire College approached d+b facades with regard to cladding an old 1960’s building. From the first contact to completion they worked with the...
The University of West London has invested £50 million to improve students' learning and social experience as part of Future Campus, an environmentally sustainable...