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Building Craft College Annexe Startford, London

The Building Crafts College is designed with low energy and sustainability as prime objective. The building accommodation is arranged over 2 floors with the ground floor comprising craft workshops for carpentry and metalwork with the first floor comprising teaching spaces, seminar rooms and offices.  
 
The building from comprises a heavyweight construction with high thermal mass but with high daylight penetration.  
 
The first floor would overheat due to their high occupancies and has been provided with enhanced automatic natural ventilation by the incorporation of wind catchers which incorporate night time pre-cooling of the spaces.  
 
Heating to the building is provided via rape seed oil fired boilers which are considered to be carbon neutral.  
 
Dynamic simulation utilising TAS software has been carried out for Part L2 calculations and the building achieves a BER of 16.65 against of TER of 39.33 (i.e. a 57.5% improvement on the TER is achieved) resulting in a sustainable design significantly beyond current regulations and aspirations.  
 
Flood risk and a drainage surcharge situation occur on the site. The lower 1 metre of the building is robust construction with not electrical services within the zone; additionally negotiations with the Environment Agency allowed discharge of rainwater from the site via a headwall outlet to the adjacent Channelsea River.  
 
Reasonable ceiling heights allow for the use of suspended luminaires with a direct/indirect lighting capability in all teaching areas which comply with L7.  
 
Luminaires within classroom and workshop areas are fully dimming by analogue 1-10V control with integral proximity and daylight sensing inbuilt into luminaires. Luminaires adjacent to windows are dimmed with a +30% off set to others to maximise the potential energy saving. The first floor toilets are provided with ‘sun pipe’ daylight tubes.  
 
A new addressable fire alarm system has been installed within the extension building. The system includes smoke detection, electronic sounders and some xenon beacons.  
 
New category 5e data wiring is installed within the new building to provide voice and data services.  
 
The project incorporated collaborative working, advanced sustainable design, dynamic simulation with continuous cost checking and verification.  
 
Grants have also been obtained via the Learning Skills Council scheme for sustainable design which achieves a 5 year payback including wind catchers, lighting/lighting control plus improvements to the natural ventilation control of the existing building including automatic natural ventilation plus simple mixed mode mechanical ventilation strategies.  



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