Recognition for Newcastle architect's work on Leeds school

North East firm, _space architecture has won national recognition for its innovative approach to building and design at a Leeds primary school.

The business was recently awarded the hotly contested Construction News accolade for Project of the Year, in partnership with Interserve, for its low carbon approach adopted for work carried out on Richmond Hill Primary School in Leeds.

Judges were impressed by the unique design and construction approach taken by _space architecture and Interserve, commending their use of offsite manufacture, community and client engagement throughout the project, resulting in what is now one of the most air tight, non-residential buildings in the UK, and the country’s largest passivhaus school.

_space architecture’s Andy Roberts said: “Designing buildings of the highest quality is a key priority for us and to receive recognition for all the hard work that is carried out by our passionate team to continually raise our standards is fantastic. Hopefully this will serve as a benchmark for other education design projects moving forwards.”

Built on behalf of Leeds City Council, the school was designed to enable the building to use considerably less energy than a conventionally built, equivalent-sized facility.

Without having to include a source of renewable energy on the development, its carbon emissions are also significantly lower, by following passivhaus design principles to create the most efficient building envelope for thermal performance and air tightness, supported by optimum heat recovery systems.

Despite working to such high standards, the project was built to budget and finished two weeks ahead of schedule.

The nationally recognised annual Construction News awards seek to highlight and celebrate the very best in the construction industry, with over 19 categories which this year saw big-name companies such as Mace, Shepherd Construction and Bam Nuttall achieve success.

No stranger to low carbon methods of building and design, _space architecture has previously brought timber framed modular structures, spacehus, to the market, in a bid to encourage homeowners and companies to explore low energy building solutions.

_space architecture’s unique work with Richmond Hill Primary School was previously recognised in 2012, when, alongside Interserve, it was given the accolade for innovation at the Yorkshire and Humber Construction Best Practice Awards.

Andy concludes: “It would be great to think we are raising the bar in terms of expectation and have succeeded in creating a passivhaus blueprint for other schools across the country to follow moving forward.”