Buro Happold was commissioned to design a new headquarters building for East Renfrewshire Council. The three-storey development embraces sustainability best practice and utilises energy efficient systems to create a comfortable environment for its occupants. The key design elements included optimising the building orientation, form and fabric to reduce energy consumption; the use of construction materials to assist in controlling the inner environment by thermal mass and night cooling; and minimising the use of electricity to reduce carbon emissions.

The optimisation meant that no mechanical cooling was required, while low fuel value solar glazing was used to reduce solar gain. East Renfrewshire Council's headquarters achieved a BREEAM Very Good rating. Dynamic thermal modelling and computational fluid dynamic analysis at the early stage of the design process prompted the energy target of 120kWh/m2/a.

Date: 2000 - 2002