Environment Agency
Red Kite House is a 30,000 sq ft office for the Environment Agency owned by HR Wallingford Ltd. Scott Brownrigg acted as architects on the building and masterplanners on the business park.
The park is a quiet site incorporating an historic manor house giving the building a unique setting. The site layout respects and responds to the fundamental opportunities and constraints of the general disposition.
The aim was to construct an office that would meet the Environment Agency's operational needs and serve as an example of best practice in sustainable office development. The building demonstrates leadership in design of improved working environments.
Red Kite House is designed to achieve BREEAM ‘excellent' rating, with carbon emissions 26% below that designed in the Department of the Environment's ‘Energy Efficiency in Offices' guidance figures.
The three storey B1 office space was designed to provide flexibility of use and respond to the requirements of the working environment of today, whilst acknowledging the requirements for longevity and the ability to accommodate future requirements that may determine that the building can be occupied differently over its lifetime.
Red Kite House incorporates a unique concrete structural grid, with 9m control spans and 3m cantilevers at the perimeter. This configuration utilises the concrete frame to its highest potential and releases the external envelope of structural elements.
Hanson Red Bank's Lockclad Terracotta rainscreen system was used as a zero maintenance external cladding made of a natural re-cyclable material.
The design has been specifically determined to allow for environmental factors and each element within the design performs a function to either passively cool the building or reduce energy consumption.
The layout is determined to harness the setting by minimising the solar gain to the building and orientating and configuring the plan to benefit from the prevailing winds, thereby allowing the required natural ventilation to have maximum impact within the design.
The structure is a concrete frame and to assist the passive night-time cooling, the windows within the façade are designed to open at night and allow cool air into the building to reduce the temperature of the exposed soffits. The soffits release the cool air over the course of the occupied day to reduce the internal temperature. Manually operated windows enable the occupants to control natural cross-ventilation.
The building is curved in plan and has been orientated east west to provide the ability to capture the prevailing wind and incorporate south facing brise soleil to provide external shading. The orientation of the building allows it to present two facades; the southern facing has more thermal control through the materials with smaller windows to control the sunlight, whereas the north facing façade is more open to daylight with larger areas of glazing. The main glazed façade is orientated towards the internal environment of the site thereby addressing the problem of light pollution.
These elements combine to promote the ability to achieve the required internal natural daylight levels and environmental conditions whilst complying with the requirements for Part L of the building regulations.
Heating is achieved through high efficiency condensing boilers aided by weather compensated heating and local thermostatic control.
Low energy artificial lighting is achieved through the use of high efficiency T5 lamps, digital ballasts and passive infra red occupancy and daylight sensing lighting control.
