Higham Hill Hub
Location
Waltham Forest, London
Year
2024
Service areas
The Brief
To provide a holistic sustainability appraisal of a proposal for a community centre which would form the cornerstone of an application for funding of its development.
The Solution
Love Design Studio used several environmental design techniques to provide guidance for the adaptation of the proposed building.
The Result
The final proposal is both more energy efficient and less susceptible to fluctuations in temperature.
The Brief
Love Design Studio were appointed to provide a holistic sustainability appraisal of a proposal for a community centre in north-east London, which would form the cornerstone of an application for funding of its development. The project strives to use natural materials and environmental design strategies to create a high-performance public.
The Solution
Love Design Studio used several environmental design techniques to provide guidance for the adaptation of the proposed building. Higham Hill Hub is intended to provide a safe space in extreme weather conditions, such as the record-breaking temperatures of summer 2022. We focused on how the building performed at high temperatures and proposed strategies for improvement including the targeted use of solar shading.
We wanted to assess how use of the proposed hempcrete material, a mixture of hemp with lime and a binder, affected the overall embodied carbon of the proposed development. An assessment of the material’s lifecycle emissions was carried out to understand how it compared against alternative materials.
The Result
The final proposal is both more energy efficient and less susceptible to fluctuations in temperature. The project is currently in the process of securing funding.
49%
less time above 25°C in rooms as a result of LDS’ environmental design strategy.
16 tCO2e
The hempcrete used in the project will sequester around 16 tCO2e across the building’s lifetime.