8/7/2019 Departamento de Ciencias de la Tierra - datos sobre sustentabilidad Wilkinson Eyre Architects

1/2

Oxford University: Department of Earth Sciences

Description

Sustainability

This building will provide a new home for an academic

department with a strong interest in sustainability through their

research into climate change. The architecture is therefore

expressive of this concern with the environment.

The accommodation includes specialist laboratory space,

which is heavily serviced and includes metal free labs with a

lunar environment, and a key challenge has been ensuring

that these spaces are as energy efficient as possible. The

laboratories are therefore divided from the office wing, allowing

these less serviced spaces to benefit from natural ventilation.

Air is drawn through a labyrinth panel adjacent to the windows

and conditioned according to the outside temperature. In

summer, the simple passive design uses the thermal mass ofthe building for cooling, assisted by external solar blinds.

A further challenge was generating energy from sustainable

sources on this constrained city centre site, with adjacent

listed buildings. An ambitious ground source heat pump, using

boreholes beneath the building, will provide the building with

around 43% of its energy. The university has applied to HEFCE

for funding to support this strategy of using renewable energy

on site.

Through a Natural Resource Impact Assessment, the building

exceeds targets set by the local planning department for its

embodied energy, which stipulate a minimum of 20% recylced

content within buildings of this type and recommend that

materials are sourced locally where possible. It is planned that,

following demolition, materials from the existing building will be

reused in the new. A brown roof on top of the building will be

created using materials from the demolition, further reducing

the embodied energy of the build and encouraging local

biodiversity.

Recycled rainwater will be collected and used within the

building for flushing toilets.

The building has been designed to be flexible for future

changes in layout, with very high floor-to-ceiling heights in the

labs and no load-bearing subdivisions, allowing for the internal

walls to be moved if necessary.

8/7/2019 Departamento de Ciencias de la Tierra - datos sobre sustentabilidad Wilkinson Eyre Architects

2/2

Oxford University: Department of Earth Sciences

Data

Sustainability

Details

Location: Oxford, UK

Client: University of Oxford

Architect: Wilkinson Eyre Architects

Structural Engineer: Pell Frischmann

Appointed: March 2006

Value: 28 million

Area: 5,000sqm

Ventilation through top of atrium

Green roof

Cafe

Plant

Flues

Conditioned

laboratories

Basement

Atrium Seminar

Exposed soffits for thermal mass

Natural ventilation to cellular offices