Sustainability
Our projects are delivered under BREEAM healthcare; we are familiar with the NHS Sustainability Development Unit and the NHS Institute for Innovation and NHS Sustainability Model tool.
Our approach is in line with the Government Construction Clients’ Panel (GCCP) Sustainable Construction Action Group “Achieving Sustainability in Construction Procurement”. We have gained a Green Apple Award for Sustainability and we’re involved in significant mental health schemes where local biomass land use, food sourcing and large scale wind generation are major drivers.
For each project we propose an environmental ‘champion’ to guide and review the outputs at design stage and ensure that project delivery is consistent with this developing policy. Our award winning project at St Nicholas Hospital, the Bamburgh Clinic is used as a sustainability good practice exemplar by NHS Shine.
To formalise Medical Architecture’s commitment to sustainability, we have engaged Associate Bob Wills to lead on Sustainability and Innovation. Bob developed an environmental policy that goes beyond the drive to gain Environmental Management System accreditation to ISO 14001: 2004 in the carbon reduction economy.
The ‘Design for Future Climate Change: Adapting Buildings’ programme funds 26 key project case studies from different sectors to better understand how buildings can be designed to be adaptable to future climate change. Our mental health development on the Edge Lane Hospital site in Liverpool is to be a case study project for the research programme funded by the government’s Technology Strategy Board. Working with climate researchers at Oxford Brookes University, and services engineers Mott MacDonald Fulcrum, we are modelling adaption strategies and future climate scenarios for 2030, 2050 and 2080. There will be a need to maintain human comfort levels in a low carbon use future, and for buildings to be able to resist greater extremes of temperature, precipitation and wind speeds, whilst remaining viable and flexible for longer. The research findings will be widely disseminated to raise awareness across the industry as to how buildings can be future proofed to be sequentially upgradeable.
