European Space Agency achieves BREEAM Excellent

Atelier Ten is delighted to announce that the European Space Agency’s new building on the Harwell Campus, the European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications (ECSAT), has obtained BREEAM ‘Excellent’ for its interim certificate.

The ESA’s ECSAT building is the first UK headquarters building located on the Atomic Energy Agency’s site in Harwell, Oxfordshire, and consists of 4,500m² cellular office space, a lecture theatre, gym and canteen area.

The building has been designed with innovative shading and blind systems allowing for solar gain control. Thirty-two, 120m deep boreholes beneath the car park provide the cooling and heating for the building which is integrated with the exposed thermal mass of the structure via embedded radiant slab cooling systems. This is all linked to an operable window system to reduce the hours the cooling system is in operation. Energy display and advice regarding which mode the building is currently in are seen on each floor via a tablet display.

Lighting is provided predominantly via highly efficient LED fixtures throughout providing an overall lighting load of 5-6W/². External lighting has been designed to meet the Secure by Design standards of a facility of this nature.

Atelier Ten would like to thank all involved for their hard work in the success of gaining this certification.

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