Chilwell Eco Office hosts seminar
13 August, 2008
Construction professionals across the region have met in Chilwell to discuss the viability of creating sustainable buildings in today’s highly challenging commercial property market.The seminar ‘Can sustainability really stack up?’ was hosted jointly by East Midlands Development Agency (emda), East Midlands Centre for Constructing the Built Environment (EMCBE) and Loughborough-based contractor and developer William Davis Ltd.
Over 100 industry professionals attended the event, which showcased one of the William Davis eco-office developments at Chetwynd Business Park, Chilwell.
‘eco-offices’
William Davis has designed and constructed two speculative ‘eco-offices’ on the final phase of this award-winning £20m business park development and each has attained a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating, a level which only a handful of schemes have achieved this year throughout the country.
The BREEAM rating measures the energy and environmental efficiency of the building ensuring the premises are highly sustainable.
The William Davis offices are naturally cool and passively ventilated and feature biomass wood pellet solid fuel boilers, rainwater harvesting for WC flushing and shower facilities, cycle parking and storage for recyclable waste together with high frequency energy efficient lighting with daylight sensors.
”Sustainable Buildings”
Dave Camp, commercial director, William Davis said: “Over recent years much of the focus on sustainable buildings has been directed towards the residential market.
The fact that so many people have shown an interest in today’s seminar demonstrates that the development of sustainable commercial buildings is very much at the forefront of people’s minds.
“What we have achieved here at Chetwynd is a working example of how sustainable and low energy demand commercial buildings can be provided in the speculative office market. What we have learned from this process will serve as a stepping stone and will give us a practical template to take forward into future schemes.”
One of the speculative eco-offices at Chetwynd has already been taken up by Toyota Materials Handling UK and the other office is being marketed by Savills, Nottingham.
By editor@nottinghamng9.co.uk.
