Site Visit to Coal House, Cardiff
About this event
This site tour will kick off with short presentations to set out key concepts and the thinking behind the project, followed by tours of the building itself to explore practical examples of deep retrofit solutions. Afterwards there will be a networking session with industry peers, with light lunch and drinks provided.
Join UKGBC on a visit to Coal House, a deep retrofit office building in Cardiff City Centre with BREEAM Excellent and SKA Gold.
Coal House is a four-story office building located in Cardiff city centre with 30,000sq ft of net internal area. Vacant possession of the property in 2022 presented an opportunity to retrofit the building to maximise the sustainability whilst creating a vibrant and engaging workspace that also provides improved facilities for occupants and enhances user wellbeing.
There are growing regulatory and commercial risks associated with older, less energy-efficient buildings – particularly in the office market. As our awareness of the need to decarbonise our built environment grows, it is becoming clear that retrofitting existing buildings results in lower whole life carbon emissions than demolition and new build, whilst reducing the wider ecological impacts of construction waste and resource usage. Deep retrofit is able to achieve significant cuts in operational energy use (60-65%+), transition buildings away from fossil fuels, and meet best practice 2030-2035 energy performance targets for offices. (UKGBC Building the Case for Net Zero: Retrofitting Office Buildings).
To minimise the embodied carbon impact, the structure at Coal House was maintained and, instead, the building underwent an exterior refurbishment with solar PV and solar shading installed. The core plant and all heating and ventilation equipment were replaced. Alongside this, technologically integrated variable air flow valves were included which enabled automated air quality management on a localised basis. The lighting was upgraded to new, highly-efficient LED systems.
To support the ongoing running of the building, a new building management system (BMS) was installed, integrating a smart building server, sensors, access and visitor management systems. Furthermore, a building app called Coalhouse.life was introduced to facilitate interaction between the smart technology, building amenity and the building occupants.
Coal House featured as a case study in UKGBC’s report, Building the Case for Net Zero: Retrofitting Office Buildings. Visit page 56 for information about Coal House.
Why attend
UKGBC cancellation and refund policy
Please see our website for more details on our cancellations and refunds: https://ukgbc.org/ukgbc-cancellation-and-refund-policy/
Commercial Retrofit Project Partners
Our live projects on commercial retrofit are made possible thanks to our project partners
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