Playtime at Harlow Fields School!

Pupils at Harlow Fields School are loving getting to grips with their interactive and sensory new playground!

ATA is working on a series of phased upgrades at Harlow Fields School and College, Essex, for pupils with special needs.   The new playground for primary children is with living willow tunnels, swings, and musical instruments. Green oak benches and a bamboo sun shelter with many planters give the playground a natural feel. The benches and bollards were commissioned Carpenter Oak Ltd to utilise the stock of off cuts. 

Open Day Great Success at Hawthorn Road Retrofit

The opening last friday of the Retrofit for the Future 'Haringey PassivTerrace' by Anne Thorne Architects for Metropolitan Housing Partnership, construction by Sandwood Design & Build, was attended by local MP Lynne Featherstone, and Councillor John Bevan, Housing Association representatives, housebuilders and lots of architects!

Existing House

The refurbishment works to 10 Hawthorn Road are to a very high energy standard, part of the ‘Retrofit for the Future’ programme, funded by the Technology Strategy Board to show how we can retrofit existing houses to achieve 80% reductions in CO2 emissions.

‘Passivhaus’ Principles Retrofit

We used Passivhaus design principles and components, concentrating on a 'Fabric First' approach with high levels of insulation and air-tightness to dramatically reduce the energy demand and CO2 emissions for this solid-walled terrace house.

The retrofitted house has been designed to consume over 80% less energy than the existing house, thereby reducing carbon emissions by 80%.  We used the Passivhaus Planning Package (PHPP) to model the existing and potential heating needs and energy use of the house, to allow us to see the effect of small adjustments to the design of insulation, quality of windows, air-tightness, cold bridging, ventilation strategies and heating & hot water systems.

A Natural Approach

This retrofit uses insulation materials from renewable sources, such as sheepswool and woodfibre insulation, and natural mineral plasters such as lime plasters internally and clay aggregate for chimney void fills.

These materials are used for their hygroscopic/vapour-open qualities to help deal with moisture within the existing building fabric, and also reduce the embodied energy of the retrofit materials in the house, actually sequestering / locking carbon into the build (unlike other forms of building materials, such as phenolic foamed insulation, etc,).

Predicted Space Heat Demand  = 31 kWh/sqm/yr

Predicted Heating Load  = 16 W/sqm

Predicted Primary Energy Use = 91 kWh/sqm/yr

Target CO2 Emissions = 18 kg CO2/sqm/yr

Bateman Mews Published!

Anne Thorne Architect's award-winning Bateman Mews project that was shortlisted for the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize has been been featured in the newly published 'Architecture 10 - RIBA Buildings of the Year' book. 

Hot off the press, the book features the award-winning projects of 2010, which includes the tactile cedar-shingle clad curves of Bateman Mews social housing scheme caught the eye of the architectural critics when it was completed last year.