News
17 March 2010
BREEAM Excellent for De Montfort University’s Hugh Aston Building
Sustainable and energy efficient building services designed by Pick Everard within the brand new £35m Hugh Aston Building at De Montfort University (DMU) in Leicester have now been completed.
Pick Everard first began working on this project, a new building for DMU’s Faculty of Business and Law, at the end of 2006. Using specialist software, engineers carried out detailed thermal modelling and simulation exercises before developing and agreeing a building services strategy that meets the university’s detailed requirements. Where possible, the building has been designed to use natural and hybrid ventilation techniques and sustainable features including ground source heat pumps, adiabatic cooling to air handling units, solar hot water arrays and daylight-linked lighting. At the design stage, the project achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating and as construction completes on site, is still on target for that.
The 16,000m2 DMU Faculty of Business and Law includes large lecture theatres, classrooms, meeting rooms, academic offices, a ‘mock’ court room, library and IT facilities. An impressive atrium and winter gardens allow air and natural light into the building.
The building will be officially opened on 17 March by Patrick McKenna, founder and Chief Executive of Ingenious Media. Prior to this he worked alongside Andrew Lloyd-Webber as Chairman and Chief Executive of the Really Useful Group. Patrick also received an Honorary Doctorate from DMU’s Faculty of Business and Law in 2008.
Umesh Desai, the University’s Deputy Director of Estates stated, “The new facility is fantastic, meets the client’s expectations and forms a landmark gateway to the campus from the city centre. The fact that there has been very little change from the initial design stages shows how well the team worked together in getting the client’s requirements right from the outset. The University has worked on a number of projects over the years with Pick Everard and I am confident that there will be other opportunities in the future.”
John Thompson, Pick Everard’s Building Services Engineering Director for the project says,” This has been a significant project for DMU, our engineers and for the contractors involved. Effective teamwork and close collaboration between Pick Everard, the university’s project team and others during both design and construction phases has resulted in a spectacular building we can all be proud of.”
