sustainable designIn this video, Bryden Wood co-founder,.
It is also designed to be zero carbon in both construction and operation.Our M&E design challenge was to look at the entire office environment and standardise the design of the M&E systems to deliver outstanding performance, while controlling costs and ensuring that the exposed services were aesthetically appealing as well.. Driving value in M&E building services at the Forge.
Our solution was to use a small variety of repeatable elements.Across the entire project, we have minimised the variety of types and sizes of equipment and distribution modules.This is to ensure repeatability, without compromising the performance of the building, both in terms of energy consumption and user comfort.
Doing this allows us to combine efficiency of performance with economies of scale on buying, for example, larger quantities of single gauge of pipe.. For ease of installation, we use pre-wired electrical products wherever possible.Fan and pipe modules are fabricated off-site, designed for simple connection on site.. We pre-cast a pattern of fixing points into the soffit, so that there would be no drilling into the soffit onsite – avoiding working at height, dirt, noise and the risk of drilling into the steel rebar within the concrete.
The pattern of the fixing points caters to full range of M&E service elements, according to size and purpose: some are attached to unistrut, some are on frames or drop rods, and some are fixed directly to the soffit.
But in order to keep fixings and supports to a minimum, fixing requirements for all M&E services are considered in coordination and designed to be shared between modules / equipment.Given the amount of carbon generated by construction, the potential benefits of adopting this approach at scale are enormous..
The Forge is a building that will not only be aesthetically striking, but also a pleasure to work in and a new standard in environmentally sensitive design.. As such, it will demonstrate in its fabric, form and function, the importance of Design to Value in the future of sustainable construction..The kit of parts of the entire project.
An excerpt from 'Design to Value: The architecture of holistic design and creative technology' book by Mark Bryden, Professor John Dyson, Jaimie Johnston MBE and Martin Wood.Published by RIBA Books.