Green features of Oastler Building
Wed, 17 May 2017 15:00:00 BST
The University’s new £28 million Oastler Building has been built with environmental sustainability and social responsibility in mind. Below are some of the features that make it one of the University's greenest buildings on campus:
The roof has both a green and a blue ‘living roof’. The green roof element consists of vegetation that improves air quality by capturing air pollutants and filtering noxious gases, and also encourages biodiversity. The blue roof involves devices designed to store and slow the rate of rainwater run-off, which eases the pressure on drainage systems and reduces the risk of local flooding.
The building has made a positive social impact in the local region. Local suppliers were used for key materials, including locally-sourced Yorkshire stone cladding, metal fin cladding, and high-performance glazing panels supplied from contractors in Brighouse and Huddersfield. Around 26% local spend and 73% local labour were used on the project.
The building’s heating, cooling and electrical systems are designed to improve its environmental performance and the wellbeing of occupants. It has complex yet highly efficient systems, using a range of low carbon technologies such as air source heat pumps and combined heat and power (CHP) systems. Each room has presence-detection sensors to maintain the optimum levels of heating, cooling and ventilation when the room is occupied by users.
LED low energy lighting has been used throughout the building, together with daylight-adjustment in all rooms which turn off lights when there is natural daylight available from the windows or atrium. There is natural ventilation to the central atria and in rooms where mechanical ventilation is used it automatically adjusts in response to occupancy and CO2 levels.
The building was designed from the outset to achieve high environmental standards and has achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating and Energy Performance Certificate A-rating, the highest achievement for any of our buildings on campus.
For more information about sustainable construction methods used for the Oastler Building contact the Sustainability team.
