Two Nottingham companies are celebrating after a local fire station received an award for being the most sustainable new fire station in the country.
Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service’s new £3.2m fire station at Carlton picked up the accolade at the BREEAM 2013 Building Awards.
The award was presented to the team including Focus Consultants, based at Phoenix Business Park, Nottingham, who designed and project managed the development in Manor Road.
Civil and structural engineer BSP Consulting, whose head office is in Oxford Street, Nottingham, was also part of the development team involved in demolishing the former fire station and creating a new purpose-built station featuring three appliance bays, a fire kit room, a laundry, unisex changing pods, offices, a gym, a quiet room, kitchen and dining area and an e-learning suite. The site also has a new five-storey tower with two-storey training building to enable realistic training to be undertaken.
The fire station was awarded a BREEAM excellent rating for its environmental credentials, and has now been named as one of 17 winning buildings at the BREEAM Awards, which were presented at this year’s Ecobuild Conference in London.
Its green credentials include timber cladding, stone blocks and a ‘green’ sedum roof. It also has energy efficient heating and cooling, low flush toilets and restricted flow rate taps, plus a water treatment and recirculation system in the vehicle wash area to both minimise water usage and the potential for watercourse pollution.
High levels of insulation to the building, coupled with energy efficient heating and cooling, has resulted in a community building delivering key services but with lower operational running costs.
Other ‘green’ features of the development included a travel plan to limit car usage and encourage cycling, with bike spaces and cyclist facilities provided and careful consideration to scheme planting working with an ecologist to maximize wildlife support. A robust site waste management plan was implemented during construction, to keep waste to a minimum through procedures to reduce and recycle, and at least 80% of the waste generated was diverted from landfill.
Focus Consultants associate and BREEAM assessor Jason Redfearn said: “We are extremely pleased that Carlton Fire Station has been rewarded for its sustainability and has been identified under the BREEAM assessment process as the ‘greenest’ new fire station built within the last year.
“BREEAM is the world’s foremost environmental assessment method and rating system for buildings. It sets the standard for best practice in sustainable building design, construction and operation, and has become one of the most comprehensive and widely recognised measures of a building’s environmental performance.
“BREEAM Awards are made annually to the highest scoring building assessments certified under BREEAM Schemes in the preceding calendar year, and it’s a feather in the cap for the whole team that Carlton Fire Station received this accolade in the fire station category.”
Focus was involved throughout the project, providing a multi-disciplinary role, which included architectural design and employer’s agent as well as BREEAM and Energy Assessor services. BSP Consulting provided structural design, including pile and ground beam design, remediation of a heavily contaminated site, produced a flood risk assessment and carried out civil infrastructure design and drainage work.
BSP managing director David Sumner said: “BSP Consulting is delighted to hear of the success of the Carlton Fire Station project in the BREEAM Awards.”
Contractor for the scheme was Bowmer & Kirkland Building Services.
Ian Pritchard, head of procurement and estates for Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service, said: “Achieving BREEAM for Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service demonstrates our continuing commitment to minimise our impact on the environment. This is a community fire station with the express intention to integrate into the local community and in doing so lead by example.”
Ecobuild is the world’s biggest event for sustainable design, construction and the built environment and brings together communities to learn, share, experience and discover the future of sustainable building and construction.
