Marina Miceli
Europe Press Office,London
Last week Zero2020Energy Retrofit, Cork Institute of Technology, won the Design Sustainability Award at the Institute of Designer’s in Ireland.
The IDI Awards recognise and reward the work of Ireland’s most talented designers, and showcase the leading projects from different disciplines in Ireland.
As lead consultants on the project, Arup provided engineering and project management consultancy services. Energy conservation and sensitivity to environmental issues were the primary concerns for Arup.
Through the use of pioneering solutions including very good air tightness levels, air source heat pumps, high efficient lighting strategies and other initiatives such as exposed thermal mass, Arup and the project team helped deliver energy and resource usage rates anticipated in the 2020 regulations (rather than the minimal compliance with current Building Regulations). Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) occupies 24,000m² of an existing two storey 1974 precast concrete structure in 4 main blocks. This pilot project involved only 290m² of the original building but it is a test-bed for the redevelopment of the original site with a view to achieving net zero energy by 2020.
The project is designed in a modular fashion to provide ‘plug and play’ capability for research in sustainable energy and in building energy systems. A net zero energy building produces as much energy as it uses in a year. The methodology is based on minimising consumption and supplementing the balance with renewable energy.
The finished space houses both the Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Management Systems (CAMMS) and the Medical Engineering Design and Innovation Centre (MEDIC), both Centres with significant external interactions.
The project was the overall winner in the Design Sustainability category. The IDI awards were held on November 8.