Last night the Lancashire Wildlife Trust and Mansell Construction hosted an event and tour of the new, soon to be opened ‘floating’ Brockholes Visitor Center in Preston for members of the Lancashire Construction Best Practice Club and local CIOB
The visitor centre has received BREEAM Outstanding for design and expects the full accreditation for the project on completion of construction. This is the first bespoke public sector project to receive this standard. In addition to providing an excellent wildlife facility, the venue should inspire those in the built environment with an interest in sustainability and low carbon construction. (And these days who hasn’t!)
As chair of the LCBPC I kicked off, re-iterating the importance of low carbon construction and construction carbon management and why it will become a defining feature for the built environment for the coming decade.
Terry Burke, Manchester City Council spoke briefly on the need for behavioural change in the way we design, build and use buildings. Most public authorities are skint, bit will still expect improvements in the usability of facilities. he challenged the delegates as to why clients are promised A EPC rated buildings yet ends up with E or F performing ones. Improvements in technology and design can be costly but changes to behaviour is low cost in comparison and can deliver real results.
Clare Kenny, LWT, talked on the clients view of the project, on the choice of design through RIBA competition (a design that reflects the Marsh Arab buildings of Iraq) and on the BREEAM Outstanding challenges and lessons.
Mansells provided a construction overview of the project, explaining the concrete floating raft technology and the challenges and solutions the project team encountered.
Following a short induction, the delegates had the opportunity to view the nearly complete construction project. The lagoon is to be filled from Monday with the centre opening to the public on Easter Sunday.
The theme of questions raised covered the cost and value from pursuing BREEAM Outstanding, on the lack of really local component / contractors (oak shakes from Bristol, timber frame from Derbyshire etc) and on the technical aspects of raft construction, SIPS panels, airtightness requirements and U values expected.
The Lancashire Best Practice Club will be holding a further event at the center on May 18th which will enable more time to learn more on construction carbon management from Carefoots, on important waste legislation from DIEM, from the LWT lessons learnt from pursuing BREEAM Outstanding and more. (For more information and to register please contact the club here)
Details of the Visitor Centre can be found here
Brockholes is on twitter @visitBrockholes
My blog item, way back in 2008, zero carbon floating development for preston
An interesting Building article can be found here
Fairsnape 
Pingback: Best Practice Club visit: BREEAM Outstanding Brockholes Visitor Center - isite - External Blogs - Construction Blogs & Opinion - ConstructionSpace from CareerStructure.com