https://www.engineeringnews.co.za

Arup drives innovation and green building industry firsts

Photo by © No. 3 Silo Architects: VDMMA & MDL in association (rendering by 3DXP)

Photo by © No. 3 Silo Architects: VDMMA & MDL in association (rendering by 3DXP)

16th March 2016

  

Font size: - +

This article has been supplied as a media statement and is not written by Creamer Media. It may be available only for a limited time on this website.

Arup appreciates that sustainability can be used to find better ways to resolve the challenges facing clients by using our technical expertise to deliver bold, sustainable solutions which consider the whole-life costs and make commercial sense. The firm increases its sustainability influence through collaborative work that facilitates the sharing of ideas and cements Arup’s position as thought leaders in the field. The firm also prioritises innovation on projects by investing in ideas and approaches that leverage design team skills and integrated design.

An example of this approach would be the work done on the Silo district buildings at the V&A Waterfront, where Arup is the appointed sustainability and green building consultants. The V&A Waterfront in Cape Town is a mixed-use property built around South Africa’s oldest working harbour. The Silo district is a new mixed-use development within the broader property that aims to be the most sustainable precinct in South Africa.

The V&A Waterfront’s No. 1 Silo, the first building to be built in the district, was recognised with multiple national and international awards for its innovative green building design and was awarded the first 6-star ‘As Built’ rating in South Africa. No. 1 Silo features some of the most innovative sustainable building features for the South African commercial property market, including a sea water-cooling system, a high performance double skin façade that helps control the thermal performance, lighting sensors, a grey water plant, water efficient fittings and fixtures, and a green roof that provides thermal insulation and contributes to storm water retention.

No. 1 Silo has won several awards, including being named overall winner, overall green winner, and winner in the corporate office development category at the 2014 South African Property Owners Association (SAPOA) Innovative Excellence in Property Development Awards. It also won numerous other local and international awards. Arup’s appointment as the sustainability, mechanical, façade & ICT engineers was instrumental in the success of the building.

The V&A Waterfront’s Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), which will be situated in the historical grain silo building and whose design is being led by renowned architectural firm Heatherwick Studio, is the central and iconic building of the district. Arup’s HVAC teams provided international best practice design to deliver precise environmental control for a new museum that aspires to hosting loans from international art institutions. Emphasis was placed on energy efficient design to reduce power consumption and the building’s demand on municipal infrastructure. The thick, exposed concrete structure will also aid operational energy efficiency by allowing the atrium space to be naturally ventilated, while still maintaining comfortable temperatures within the space during hot summer days. Lighting, both natural and artificial, will play a vital role in defining visitor experience when visiting Zeitz MOCAA.

Arup followed a 24-hour lighting philosophy for the project, developing a holistic lighting solution for the atrium space that carefully balanced and combined daylight and electric lighting. Daylight studies explored how sunlight could animate the space through the seasons, as well as creating a dynamic and visually engaging environment for museum visitors. These studies informed the geometry and material selection of the key atrium glazed apertures.

No. 2 Silo, No. 3 Silo, and No. 4 Silo, No. 5 Silo and No. 6 Silo, for which Arup were the V&A Waterfront’s sustainability and green building consultants, are all targeting Green Star ratings. No. 2 Silo was awarded the first Multi-Unit Residential v1 rating in South Africa, and Arup has worked with the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) to develop custom tools for the No. 3 Silo and No. 4 Silo mixed-used development, and for the No. 6 Silo (a Radisson Red hotel), all of which are industry ‘firsts’.

What is next for green buildings in South Africa?
Although South Africa has made great strides in the green building industry since 2009, there is still significant scope for improvement. The next frontier of ‘green building rating’ systems relates to systems like The Living Building Challenge, which are far more stringent because they place regenerative targets (e.g. energy positive) on projects and are based on 12 months of actual performance data. This is a positive step because it moves away from ‘doing less bad’ to fundamentally changing the way buildings are being designed, and it closes the loop between design intent and actual use. However, this also poses several technical and commercial challenges for teams. The South African context might not yet be ready for this next step, but Arup are positioned to help clients who are prepared to take this leap.

Moving away from rating systems, the Arup sustainable buildings team have noticed several sustainability trends that could inform the South African market.

Carbon-neutral and net-positive buildings: “It is already common within ecology, for example, for the baseline aspiration to be set at net-zero neutrality, and an upgrade to the existing site condition moves into good practice. Less common are the challenging categories of energy, water, waste, because there are very real technical challenges to achieving this. Arup are working on a few zero-carbon/energy positive/water positive buildings globally,” explains Jaco Kemp, associate at Arup.

Social sustainability, health and well-being: There is growing momentum behind health and well-being as the ‘next wave’ focus for sustainable green buildings, placing the human experience at the heart of decisions around design and operations. Buildings need to be fit for purpose and healthy for those who use them as well as contribute towards increased productivity. For example, projects are implementing biophilic design principles for their ecological, mental health and microclimatic benefits, such as a greater connectivity to outdoors, natural material palettes or elements that enable inhabitants to have greater interaction with nature.

City resilience and adaptation: As climate change grows in acceptance as an inevitable element in our future, cities, buildings and organisations are prioritising investigation of resiliency and risk management across the built environment and their operations. This is contributing to longer-term decision making around capital investment, and requiring new design exercises of teams to investigate suitability of proposals across future weather projections.

Kemp concludes: “Arup appreciates that contextually appropriate solutions are required for projects and that global trends need to be adapted to suit the needs of the South African property market. Given the project climate change predictions for South Africa, our current energy crisis and appreciating that sustainability speaks equally to social capital, we believe that these trends can add value to clients and building users”.


About Arup

Arup is the creative force at the heart of many of the world’s most prominent projects in the built environment and across industry. From 92 offices in 40 countries our 12,000 planners, designers, engineers and consultants deliver innovative projects across the world with creativity and passion.

We have over 650 staff in Africa, of which over 400 are based in South Africa. Through our unsurpassed technology and connectivity, we can call on the international expertise of our colleagues from across the globe at any time. We have worked on more than 20,000 projects and developments in Africa including commercial buildings, mixed-use developments, airports, sports venues, bridges, highways, railways, industrial development zones, oil, gas and energy projects, hospitals, prisons, arts and cultural venues, science and technology parks, water and waste projects.

On these projects, we have provided or continue to provide multidisciplinary engineering, planning, project management, transaction advice and sustainability consulting services.


For more information, go to www.arup.com/Global_locations/South_Africa.aspx.

 

Issued by Arup

Contact: Candice Wakefield
  Marketing Co-ordinator | Marketing & Communications
Tel:   +27 11 218 7882
Cell:   +27 72 659 4818
Email:   candice.wakefield@arup.com

Website:  www.arup.com

 

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

Comments

Showroom

Showroom image
Alcohol Breathalysers

Supplier & Distributor of the Widest Range of Accurate & Easy-to-Use Alcohol Breathalysers

VISIT SHOWROOM 
SABAT
SABAT

From batteries for boats and jet skis, to batteries for cars and quad bikes, SABAT Batteries has positioned itself as the lifestyle battery of...

VISIT SHOWROOM 

Latest Multimedia

sponsored by

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION







sq:0.072 0.124s - 158pq - 2rq
Subscribe Now