College on course for top sustainability award

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THE South Lanarkshire College Low Carbon Teaching Building is in the running for a prestigious Green Gown Award, which rewards sustainability in the education sector. 

The building, designed by Austin-Smith:Lord, was the first to achieve an outstanding rating in the BREEAM 2014 new construction assessment process. It has now been been shortlisted in the Built Environment Category of the awards.

Catherine Cosgrove, lead architect said, “Our brief from South Lanarkshire College was a very simple one – to design a new eight classroom teaching building that achieved a BREEAM Outstanding rating.

“Construction is one of the three core departments within the college and the client team wanted to experience every part of the design and construction of a low energy building. They intended to use the process as part of their teaching curriculum, something that worked well for them previously when they built a low energy exemplar house on the campus.

“Particular attention was paid to planning methods of post occupancy evaluation. Not only is this monitoring a requirement of the BREEAM “Outstanding” target but it can also be integrated into the construction curriculum. The intention is that the students will play an ongoing role in monitoring and assessing the performance of the building throughout its life.