Harris Academy, Purley - Design for Future Climate
Design for Future Climate was a research project commissioned by the Technology Strategy Board to develop design solutions for future climate resilience for the Harris Federation’s BREEAM Excellent Harris Academy building in Purley. The focus of the study was thermal performance and overheating where Aedas and the design team studied the whole-life cost and performance benefits of a range of measures. The aim was to select the highest-impact measures with least cost implications to allow the project team to incorporate these in the design at a time when education projects were facing severe financial constraints.
By developing a separate research-study thermal model the team highlighted thermal performance and overheating risks under current and future climate conditions which included 2020, 2050 and 2080 scenarios.
The key areas of the investigation included robust window design – increasing the ‘effective free area’, improving G and U values as well as actuator selection for automated night-purge. The potential impacts of thermal mass and thermal bridging were studied alongside the assessment criteria for incorporating the impacts of increased internal gains through operating hours, density and appliance loads. In addition the study also helped with input on increasing the rainwater design capacity to deal with future scenarios. This project helped Aedas architects improve their awareness of the risks and opportunities to achieve long-term building resilience under the current legislative framework and design-and-build procurement route. The project is a case study for CIBSE’s forthcoming Technical Memorandum for Climate Change Adaptation.
The final report will be available to read online soon*.
*Registration required
01. Stockley Academy - External elevation
02. Dynamic Thermal Image
Generated in IES
03. Harris Academy - Adaptation result table
Assessment of overheating as per BB101 and BREEAM for the hottest naturally ventilated room in the base case and various design adaptations
04. Harris Academy - Adaptation results graph
Graph showing the average temperature hours in range for all naturally ventilated rooms in the base case and various design adaptations