‘Active Office’ Wins Two New Awards
An innovative modular building delivered by Wernick in 2018 has won two new awards for ‘Most Innovative Building Project’ and ‘Most Innovative Public Sector Project’ at the Building Innovation Awards (BI Awards).
The BI Awards celebrate ground-breaking companies that create green, safe and smart buildings. The awards highlight the technology and techniques that boost productivity and profits to advance the UK construction sector.
Delivered for SPECIFIC, a UK Innovation and Knowledge Centre, the Active Office is located at Swansea University Bay Campus. The modular accommodation was designed to be the UK’s first energy positive office building meaning it generates more energy than it uses each year.
Joanna Clarke, SPECIFIC’s Design Manager commented: “I am thrilled that we have won this award. It truly recognises the collaborative working methods we adopted for this project. These ranged from using a collaborative procurement route to working with partner organisations to integrate innovative low-carbon technologies, which we can test in real-world situations. The Active Office shows what can be achieved when project design and delivery teams work closely together with their supply chain partners, enabling building projects to be developed effectively in shorter timeframes.
Through the Active Office, we have shown how we can significantly reduce our energy consumption in buildings. By using energy monitoring data, we can improve building performance, optimise building energy systems and make operational carbon savings throughout the life of a building. Awards like this highlight the art of the possible, as we seek solutions to meet our net zero carbon targets.”
SPECIFIC gained funding for the Active Office from Innovate UK, Swansea University and the European Regional Development Fund. In addition, a range of different companies were involved in the development of this building; Tata Steel supplied the cladding, Cisco produced the communications systems, Naked Energy designed the PVT tubes and BIPVco created the solar panels.