A successful lab must be designed with heavy involvement from the client and user team to remove all doubts and uncertainties.
Even though the new construction option benefits from a better operational carbon from day one, the decarbonisation of the grid ‘flattens’ the operational carbon emissions in the.retrofit options, dampening the difference with a new build..
It is worth highlighting that the climate emergency is happening today, and so it is now that we need to reduce carbon emissions that produce global warming.We cannot wait 20 or 40 years for the benefits of more efficient new buildings.This is the main reason why it is important that we prioritise refurbishment, reusing buildings that already exist..
If we account for the decarbonisation of material manufacturing (red dotted line), the difference between the adaptive reuse of buildings and new construction is even greater.. As part of this analysis, we calculated the WLCA using different performance benchmarks to prove that the conclusions would not depend on a specific baseline selected.The results below on the left, are based on LETI 2020/RIBA2025, and the ones on the right are based on LETI 2030/RIBA 2030.
In both cases of adaptive reuse, the light-touch refurbishment and full refurbishment are more advantageous than new construction..
It is important to flag that this trend favouring the reuse of buildings does not necessarily apply to every building.Incremental, iterative design, constant close collaboration with stakeholders and openness to change are key to this.. Tanya works closely with stakeholders to identify the business need and value drivers for projects, and to define their overall scope.
She then brings together and manages multi-disciplinary, multi-national and multi-organisational teams to quickly identify and develop value-adding, innovative solutions.Minimising initial CapEx, OpEx and project risk, by designing, modular, flexible and expandable solutions, is a recurring theme.Andrew Pearson is a.
Chartered Engineer.and joined Bryden Wood in 2015.. Andrew has over 15 years’ experience working in the building services industry and has built up a varied project portfolio from complex Ministry of Defence sites, hospitals and research laboratories to simpler residential and commercial schemes.
(Editor: Quick Drawers)