BRE Environmental Building

Fielden Clegg Bradley Architects' The Environmental Building at the BRE's campus at Garston was built as a demonstration building for the Energy Efficient Office of the Future.

Performance features:
• Avoids the use of air-conditioning.
• Maximises the benefits of the building fabric in terms of reducing/smoothing the heating and cooling loads.
• Minimises the use of artificial lighting.
The performance targets were established as 47 kWh/m² for gas; 36 kWh/m² for electricity; and 34 kg/m² for CO₂ emissions - representing a 30% improvement on current best practice.

The ‘green’ elements in the building are:
• 80 000 reclaimed bricks.
• 96% of the old building was reclaimed or recycled.
• Reclaimed mahogany parquet flooring.
• 90% of in-situ concrete used recycled aggregate.
• Ground granulated blast furnace slag used in the cement mix.
• Timber sourced from sustainable resources.
• Low-flush toilets.
• Environmentally friendly paints and varnishes.