May 19 2008
The BRE Innovation Park has launched the latest phase of its development featuring a new visitor centre and a zero carbon home built by one of the UK's largest housebuilders, Barratt Developments.
Innovation Park Director, Jaya Skandamoorthy says ‘We are delighted to open the park to these great new facilities - the Visitor Centre which forms an integral part of BRE's enterprise and innovation hub with the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) and the Barratt Green House which is the first mainstream home to meet the criteria for zero stamp duty.'
With funding from EEDA, the new Visitors' Centre has been developed from an existing house, built in 2005 by Hanson. This has been fully refurbished, reconfigured and extended to not only to provide information services on the Park supply chain, but also to demonstrate innovative technologies including solar hot water collectors, photovoltaics, low-energy lighting and heating, and a grey water recycling system.
Opening the centre today, Iain Gray, Chief Executive of the Technology Strategy Board (which promotes and supports the research, development and exploitation of technology and innovation for the benefit of UK business) says 'This is an exciting new facility, which will promote technological innovation in the UK construction industry and help to show how companies can work to meet the Government's challenging targets for improving sustainability. I am particularly pleased to open the facility on the same day that the Technology Strategy Board announces it is to invest £4 million to fund innovative collaborative research and development in components and materials for low impact buildings.'
The Barratt Green House, designed by Gaunt Francis architects, won the 2007 Home for the Future Design Award run by the Mail on Sunday in collaboration with the National Centre for Excellence in Housing (a joint venture between BRE and the NHBC). The award-winning design was voted for by more than 22,000 Mail on Sunday readers.
Designed to Level 6 of the Code for Sustainable Homes it will be the first home constructed by a mainstream home builder to meet the criteria for zero stamp duty.
Constructed from aircrete, storey high panels with thin-joint mortar, the house uses concrete floor slabs to provide a robust frame with high ‘thermal mass' to ensure that any potential overheating problem is reduced. The house generates its own energy with photovoltaic cells, both on it's own roof and on a neighbouring building, and with an air-air heat pump.
Jaya Skandamoorthy says 'the Green House is a major achievement by Barratt, it brings a wealth of new innovative systems, materials and technologies to the Park which the industry can learn from and this is what the Park is all about.