Intelligent BREEAM
BREEAM- love it or hate it, its here to stay and with the governments declaration to build our way out of the country’s 2020 financial hole, the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge and an increasing environmental agenda on the part of tenants and buyers , we predict that developers will start to see more challenging BREEAM standards being set by local councils.
For many developers in the commercial sector, BREEAM may often have felt like a ‘non event’ with most well designed buildings achieving ‘Good’ or ‘Very Good’ without much, if any, in the way of extra effort. However, the shift to Excellent or Outstanding can be quite a task and we have seen lots of scenarios where early points scoring opportunities are missed by teams unused to these more rigorous benchmarks.
BREEAM, particularly if the scheme is to achieve Excellent or Outstanding, needs to be a priority for the design team from the outset in order that opportunities for early consultation, debate and engagement are not missed in the early RIBA phases.
With the volume of repeat work we are lucky enough to undertake, we are often consulted far earlier than many contractors would otherwise be which enables us to support the team and tick off these early opportunities. The value of doing this is huge, saving potentially six figure sums compared to adding additional technologies and renewables later in the process.
The focus for us is always value for our clients and early collaborative effort can deliver just that. By maximising the resources of the design team early in the process and by bringing subcontractors with design portions to the table too, we are able to pool a wealth of experience in maximising these gains. The addition advantage of this engaged and collaborative effort is that many potential future issues can be designed out or headed off at the pass which ensures both program and cost plans are more robust.
If you are concerned about delivering high BREEAM standards on future schemes, please get in touch to see how we might be able to simplify the process for you. In the mean time, here are a few images of the recently completed Travelodge in Portsmouth, designed to achieve BREEAM Excellent.
