News archive for March, 2014
BREEAM 2014 Update
Posted on March 31st 2014
BREEAM 2014 has recently been published in draft. It is expected that the scheme will be formally released in May 2014, and registrations under BREEAM 2011 will close in June 2014. Four new credits have been added which are described in brief below:- Mat 6 – Material Efficiency: This credit looks to measure the material efficiency used within a building …
Glazing Implications of Part L1A 2013
Posted on March 31st 2014
Glazing is already a key focus area for environmental assessment, driving internal daylight levels, thermal comfort, and overheating risk. Our initial assessment using Part L 2013 shows the increasing importance of early consideration of the energy and CO2 impacts of glazing design. The strategic issue is that the benchmark notional building used in SAP 2012 requires high thermal efficiency through …
Addressing the Energy Performance Gap: Post Occupancy Evaluation
Posted on March 31st 2014
To address the ‘clear evidence of a performance gap between the design & as built performance of new homes’ [1] the Zero Carbon Hub is proposing that from 2020 it must be demonstrated that 90% of all new homes must meet or perform better than the designed energy performance. In addition to this emerging industry requirement, home buyers are becoming increasingly …
Three More Specialists Join Our Team
Posted on March 4th 2014
We are delighted to welcome three new people to our team, Thomas Gwilliam, Simon Gowing and Tanya McLarney. These have all joined us in the last two months. Thomas Gwilliam joins us as an Energy Specialist. He is an engineering graduate from Edinburgh University and is an experienced energy and BREEAM assessor. He brings detailed knowledge of energy systems and …
Planning Success at Woodberry Down
Posted on March 4th 2014
The London Borough of Hackney have recently resolved to grant planning permission for the revised Woodberry Down Masterplan. Berkeley Homes’ 20 year, £1billion regeneration of the neglected Woodberry Down estate will now provide in excess of 5,500 homes, at least 40% of which will be affordable. Set over 64 acres and adjacent to the Stoke Newington Reservoirs and New River, …
Low-Energy Building Optimisation for Concept Design
Posted on March 4th 2014
As building designers, we are continually challenged with trying to optimise building design to achieve low-energy, yet financially viable solutions. Hodkinson Consultancy have adopted an innovative approach to optimisation, working closely with software developers and research academics to advance sophisticated simulation techniques. The optimisation process applies the Darwinian evolutionary selection theory to identify variables that have greatest influence on achieving …
BREEAM Communities Certification Demonstrates Sustainability to Eastleigh Borough Council
Posted on March 4th 2014
We are delighted to announce that we have recently achieved our first BREEAM Communities certification at Crowdhill Green, Fair Oak, in Eastleigh Borough Council. Working closely with Bloor Homes and the Highwood Group, both of whom demonstrated a strong commitment to BREEAM Communities from the outset, the BREEAM Communities Step 1 process was undertaken in parallel with the Outline planning …