Buro Happold wins three 2020 CIBSE Building Performance Awards

Buro Happold has been honoured with three Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) Building Performance Awards and has been highly commended in a fourth category.

Now in their thirteenth year, the CIBSE Awards recognise the people, products, innovations, initiatives and projects that demonstrate engineering excellence in the built environment. They are the only industry awards that focus on actual, measured performance outcomes alongside design intent and performance specifications. Efficient low energy consumption is the primary focus of the award criteria.

On Tuesday 11 February 2020, over 750 industry professionals attended an awards dinner in central London to discover who would triumph across 15 keenly contested categories.

For the third year running, Buro Happold won the coveted title of ‘Building Performance Consultancy of the Year (over 300 employees)’ and Associate Tom Hopton was awarded the prestigious ‘Building Performance Engineer of the Year’ award. To be recognised by CIBSE in both categories is an example of our continued excellence as an expert engineering, consultancy and advisory practice.

We were also delighted to be awarded ‘Project of the Year – Retrofit’ for our building services work on The Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London, 22 Gordon Street and to be Highly Commended in the International Project of the Year’ for The Hitchcock Center for the Environment in Amherst, USA.

It’s great to be recognised by peers in this critical space. It’s only by committing to detailed energy modelling, collecting the data and evaluating performance that our industry can really start to deliver on operational carbon savings.

Andy Keelin, Partner and Global Commercial Sector Leader at Buro Happold

Our award wins are demonstrative of our leadership in building performance and our commitment to low energy and low carbon design, showcasing our exemplary performance individually, as a team and in conjunction with our clients and collaborators.

Building Performance Consultancy (over 300 employees): Buro Happold

A third consecutive victory in this category acknowledges our world class building performance consultancy service with a global reach.

We take a holistic approach to improving building performance across our projects, considering a range of inter-related issues such as energy, carbon, health, wellbeing, asset value and productivity.

Sustainability within building performance has always been at the forefront of our organisation since it was founded in 1976. Low carbon and energy efficiency are key themes in the philosophy of how Buro Happold designs solutions for buildings. Our target is to achieve net zero carbon in all new build projects in operation by 2030 and all projects by 2050.

Building Performance Engineer of the Year: Tom Hopton

Tom’s award win is in recognition of his holistic approach to building performance. His expertise in environmental engineering, BIM, controls and smart technology integration helps develop industry standards and guidance around smart technology.

It was an huge honour to receive the Building Performance Engineer of the Year Award on Tuesday night and great all round achievement for Buro Happold. My award was the result of the right projects, willing clients and the support from so many brilliant people over the years. A true testament to our culture at Buro Happold.

Tom Hopton, Associate at Buro Happold

Project of the Year – Retrofit: The Barlett School of Architecture, UCL, 22 Gordon Street

Our work on The Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London is a perfect example of deep retrofit. An existing 1970s building, it was retrofitted and extended to increase teaching space and replace ageing MEP systems. The £22 million refurbishment at the Gordon Street premises was awarded BREEAM “Excellent” rating for its efficient, low energy environment.

Our team incorporated a building services design that enhances the existing structure. Systems have been designed to reflect UCL’s long-term sustainability targets and enhance student experience.

Buro Happold led a two year post occupancy evaluation of the building assessing energy use, user satisfaction as well as running lessons learnt workshops with the whole project team. These methodologies have since been embedded into the new UCL post project review guidelines.