Winchester’s Ashburton Court was once the laughing stock of Hampshire County Council’s property estate.

The 1960s concrete structure, used as a central HQ, was loathed by staff and emitted CO2 levels way above the legal threshold.

The council, which takes pride in its built environment, had planned to knock it down and start again.

Then Bennetts Associates suggested a sustainable refurbishment of Ashburton: they would join it with Elizabeth II Court next door and create an HQ complex instead.

Name

Elizabeth II Court, Winchester

Client

Hampshire County Council

Partners

Bennetts Associates, Mace Group, Davis Langdon, BAM, Ernest Griffiths, Gifford, Colliers CRE

When it happened

Spring 2007 – Summer 2009

Brief

Refurbish a 1960s office block into a modern, efficient and sustainable working environment for HCC.

Aims

The scheme had to:

• be sustainable in every way possible
• enable HCC to introduce new flexible working methods and make more efficient use of assets
• act as exemplar for the Improvement and Efficiency South East (IESE) procurement framework
• be delivered within tight budgetary and programme constraints
• reduce the Council’s office portfolio to enable funds to be directed into front line services.

How it was done

The original concrete frame of the building was retained, saving 50% of the  embodied energy normally required to construct a building.

Recycled demolition materials were used wherever possible in the contractor’s supply chain, including former pre-cast concrete cladding panels that were crushed offsite and re-used as aggregate in other Hampshire projects.

Local bricks and a timber-based window system also helped significantly reduce related CO2 emissions.

Natural ventilation was used, despite acoustic studies showing that open windows were unfeasible on one side of the building due to traffic noise. Instead, the architect designed a new system allowing air to be drawn from the complex’s internal courtyards, then across the floorplates and expelled through ducts along the street façades. The ducts have devices at the top called wind troughs that use wind energy to create the suction force that drives the system.

Waste heat from cooling plants required to service the Council’s Data Centre is being recycled to heat areas of the building in winter.

Solar shading (sun control devices), intelligent lighting systems that switch off when not required, exposing of the concrete soffits for thermal mass and a new energy efficient building envelope, all contribute to achieving very significant energy savings.

Water saving devices were installed in toilets and washrooms to keep consumption within previous levels despite nearly doubling the occupancy.

Increasing the floor area and introducing flexible working has allowed HCC to  around 500 more staff in the building.

Key benefits

70% reduction in emissions compared with the former Ashburton Court. Carbon emissions reduced from 90kg CO2/m2/annum to the target level of 39kg/CO2/annum. This is expected to reach 30kg CO2/m2/annum in the long-term.

75% more staff in refurbished offices. Previously, Ashburton Court was home to 625 employees. The new building has 1,100 staff.

30% shrinking of HCC Headquarters estate. Increasing the floor area and introducing flexible working has allowed the Council to dispose of other offices in Winchester.

What they say

“We call this a transformation more than a refurbishment. They had an existing building that was poorly performing and unpopular with staff. One possibility was creating a new build, the other was looking at what could be done with this beast in the city centre. On balance, we thought refurbishment would suit them well.

“The “campus” idea was better for long-term flexibility and would lead to better efficiencies than a new build somewhere else. Ashburton Court’s unpopularity had reached almost national levels. We suggested the council had an obligation to deal with the shortcomings of that building, rather than sell it on to the private sector for them to deal with it.”

“The cores tend to be placed in good locations. Many concrete frames have good life left in them. Thin floorplates offer up better possibilities for lighting and natural ventilation.”

–        Julian Lipscombe, director of Bennetts Associates

Location: 51.065013,-1.318505

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