Eco-Station

Project type: Conversion and eco-retrofit for a visitor and administrative facility

Project location: Bordon, Hampshire

Client: East Hampshire District Council

Above left: The 1907 built fire station as it was prior to the conversion work.
Above right: The completed conversion into Eco-Station and now serving the former MoD garrison town of Bordon (set to become a new ‘eco-town’) with new visitor, administrative and community facilities.
Image credits: Ian McKay

As one of the first projects of the new eco-town of Bordon in East Hampshire, the former Ministry of Defence fire station (Circa 1907) was converted into a new headquarters and visitor centre. As an eco-retrofit, it was a tour de force of honing the most cost-effective elements to treat relative to a super-tight budget. The new facility boasts fully accessible spaces and includes a multi-use exhibition space, lecture theatre, community meeting rooms and offices.

Ian McKay was Director in Charge of this project during his time at BBM Sustainable Design. He and his team were able to convert the redundant 667m2 fire station into a capable new facility and halving its carbon footprint in operational energy use.

‘Make good and mend’
The design team worked tirelessly to identify the most cost-effective set of eco-retrofit measures with a view to making the biggest visual and energy efficiency impact within a very limited budget. The solution adopted was to implement a base level upgrade to the entire building with certain areas, which were deemed to be ‘change of use’, receiving extra thermal efficiency upgrades. The strategy also needed to identify ground floor areas which needed to be tackled in the first phase of work, in order to avoid decanting issues. The make good and mend strategy extended to working with/adapting existing pvc double glazing, heating and electrics as well.

The Client Team was approached by Waste Works which is a work experience programme run in conjunction with Ford Open Prison as a means of providing practical site training for inmates who are nearing the end of their custody. The proposition was that Waste Works would assist the main contractor in diverting the site waste away from landfill and either to be re-used in the building or to some off-site form of salvage. The data collected during the course of the build has indicated a pretty much ‘skip free’ status on the Eco-Station.

Design strategies included:

High performance insulation materials to reduce energy use of the building from around 170kwh/ m2/yr to about 65kwh/m2/yr;

Thermal upgrade strategy to allow a phased implementation when afforded without having to decant occupants;
New solar thermal installation;
New space heating controls added to adapt the heating requirements of various spaces;
New energy efficient lighting;
Passive stack ventilation to the offices and AV Lecture Space to help reduce fan energy usage;
Incorporation of a waste minimisation strategy to divert maximum waste materials away from landfill;
The recycling and sorting on site will help Ford Open prison inmates acquire useful job skills;
Design for deconstruction strategy applied to new installations to maximise re-use and recy- cling of salvaged resources.

Energy analysis

The annual heating energy for both the existing and proposed building were calculated using IES dynamic thermal modelling software. This requires the inputting of the thermal characteristics of the building’s walls, roof, floor and glazing along with the building’s orientation and design air temperatures. The calculation uses standard weather data for outdoor temperature and solar intensity on an hourly basis.

The existing building’s estimated carbon footprint was: 91kgCO2/m2/annum

The proposed building performance (whole building retrofit) would be: 47kgCO2/m2/annum (using gas heating but could be lowered still further if a heat pump were to be fitted)

By improving the thermal standard of the building, the space heating energy was reduced by around 60%.