Passivhaus low carbon medical school – Leicester

Just about to submit for planning permssion for a state of the art medschool – designed hopefully to  be one of the most energy efficient buildings of its type in the UK . I have been working as principle project manager at the University of Leicester  on this one since last June 2010 as well as principle briefing guide to the very capable firm Associated Architects in Birmingham .

Apart from designing a really good medical teaching building the brief has the principle requirement to get an A grade energy rating with a secondary requirement for BREEAM excellent .

This building will hopefully put the University of Leicester at the front of new Low Carbon building projects and set an example for others.

I produced the sketches from the Architects models in Sketchup and then processed rendering with Kerkythea – quite dramatic!

Will feed in the many technical details in later blogs …………

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,100 times in 2010. That’s about 5 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 11 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 55 posts. There were 32 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 12mb. That’s about 3 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was February 19th with 40 views. The most popular post that day was Vodafone Glazing -1500px.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were mcbethdesign.co.uk, lmodules.com, 123people.co.uk, shots.snap.com, and student-loan-consolidation-at.blogspot.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for tirana 2010, mcbethdesign, exhibition hall plan, exhibition hall design, and vodafone stoke.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

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another lost design from 1994 – abu dhabi exhibition hall September 2009

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About August 2009
9 comments

Buildings for Interaction

Looking at a building intended to get academics , students and anyone else visiting to talk and discuss things with each other and using Sketch up as an effective ideas communicator -this time trying to master Kerkeythea for interiors work – I really wish I had these programmes when I was at university a long time ago !! – All produced within a matter of hours and quite satisfying to do without the need for a separate graphic visualiser.

A Sustainable University 2020

I recently produced this aerial masterplan image for a University green week where I work .
Purely fictional and made to look like a cartoon using a sketch -up-’ z- mapping’ model and then rendered in Kerkythea 2008.
The detail on the original was considerable and produced a quite impressive poster.

Joining buildings together

I am at the sketch up again with an IDX renditioner plug in – a curved colored glazed wall with a DNA inspired  vertical mullion grid – sketch-up time 1.5hrs – render time 1min 35 seconds.

Location – confidential.

Vodafone Stoke in New vibrant colours

Vodafone recently added some great new wall panels and graphics into the new call ventre at Stoke which really complement the design and and add yet more vibrancy to the spaces – As an architect the intention was always to give them some way ot making the space their own and that is exactly what they are doing – good stuff!

The building was also recently visited by judges for this years British Council for Offices Awards (best corporate office Midlands)- we wont know till May if they were impressed!

Bog Standard Bar -Salisbury Racecourse 2009

This was a small pavilion that I designed for salisbury racecourse – who required a purpose built bar and new toilets with betting totes to service the corporate weekend racing that they do.
This one went on hold when the hospitality market started to slow down negating the need for it in the immediate future.
This was using sketch up and rendered using Irender and photoshop.
Simple and affordable scheme.

Hagley Road West – RETAIL UNITS FOR SALE 2010

I designed these roadside retail units back in 2008 – proposed for a site on Hagley Road West Birmingham UK after considerable debate with the planners – Unfortunately another site that has difficulty finding tenants or buyers in this deep recession – Was great fun deisgning it though its not one of my best – A good exercise this time using Irender as an experiment in night lighting – could be a nice little scheme if its detailed properly in future.

Offices Eastern Europe -Tirana -2010

I carried out some design options for a headquarters in Eastern Europe that are likely to go ahead now . A full workspace analysis and site appraisal resulted in these sketches – using sketchup and IDX as a renderer.
The sketch and render time was less than a day and was extremely useful in deciding what design approach the client prefererred . I will leave you to guess which concept is to be built. Oh  – and incidentally the big glass wall faces North – first sustainable design rule ! It also slopes in the way at the bottom to remove glass cloud effect.
The site is on outskirts of  Tirana- Albania and the design is intended to have strong colours to reflect recent policy by the local mayor to have colourful buildings in the city.

Its not about pretty pictures all the time !!

Getting a building design project off the ground is not just all about pretty pictures (although the pictures really help!) . Its also important to traditionally understand and present the detail construction proposals along with specifications and a myriad of supplementary documentation and communications. See here two details sheets explaining the  Vodafone roofing and one of the rear entrance doorways.