ABSTRACT
A number of buildings like Bill Dunster’s BEDZED development and Alan Short’s Lanchester Library are lighting the path to the future. This chapter considers a few more buildings and projects which come into this category.
Following devolution, the Principality of Wales was granted greater autonomy resulting in the need for an assembly building for which the Richard Rogers Partnership was appointed Architects with environmental engineer BDSP. It is a classic example of architect and engineer working in concert from the earliest stage of the project. The design brief was for a building which reflected the democratic nature of government while also being a landmark example of low energy design. It also has to last 100 years. Given this lifespan, embodied energy will only be a tiny fraction of the energy in use over the life of the building, so the primary aim was to drive down operational energy demand. The engineers are confident that the building will use no more than 50% of the energy of a building conforming to current Regulations in this location.
