BDP has picked up the top prize in the higher education and campus category in this year’s AJ Retrofit Awards, for the firm’s work at the University of Strathclyde.
The awards celebrate the design expertise behind the vital renewal and repurposing of existing buildings, slashing the industry’s carbon footprint in the process.
BDP’s work involved the refurbishment and adaptive reuse of two existing buildings at the University of Strathclyde: the Colville Building and Architecture Building.
The project created a new student hub overlooking the university’s Rottenrow Gardens. BDP explained that the reuse of the existing structure and ‘careful’ adaption of the existing buildings provides a ‘significant’ reduction in embodied carbon compared to a full new build.
Martin Jarvie, architect associate at BDP, said, “There was a clear opportunity to re-use and adapt these existing buildings to improve the quality of the university’s campus and enhance the overall student experience. The decision to transform the existing buildings rather than a new-build project also has substantial sustainable benefits.
“Our sustainability team compared the embodied carbon of the adaptive re-use of the existing building structure to a notional new build equivalent and demonstrated that the project saved around 67% of CO2e.”
