energy solutionsfor better buildings
Red Kite House Wallingford, UK
1295 visits
Acronym | AdVent 18
Posting Date | 14 January 2010
Country | United Kingdom
Geographic Coverage | International
Theme | Controls, energy management systems, Building envelope (walls, windows,...), Energy efficiency technologies and materials, Lighting, On-site renewable energy sources, Thermal comfort, indoor air quality, acoustics, General, Heating, domestic hot water, Air conditioning, cooling, ventilation, air infiltration
Target Group | Building professionals
Source of funding | EC
Abstract | Red Kite House is a three-storey office building in South East England with a total floor area
of 2 500 m². Each floor is mainly open-plan office area with some meeting and other rooms.
Figure 1 shows a plan view of the first floor. The total number of staff is about 250. Some
staff are permanently stationed in the building; others spent a proportion of their working time
away from the office and are only intermittently present, using a ‘hot-desking’ arrangement.
Principal occupied hours are week days between 08.00 and 18.00
Illustrations | 
Web URL(s) of the case | http://www.buildingadvent.com
Lessons learnt | Occupants indicated a high degree of satisfaction with the indoor environment but designers of future
buildings using the same principles might consider including monitors within the BEM
system to allow windows to be opened if carbon dioxide concentrations reached a set limit.
Control algorithms need to be carefully designed where window opening is controlled by several
variables (such as temperature, rain, carbon dioxide) to ensure optimal operation.
With the increasing use of computing equipment in offices, it is useful, in order to manage energy
use, to meter lighting and other building related electricity consumption separately from other
uses.
Night-time natural ventilation in common with a thermal sink provided by exposed
concrete ceilings limits peak temperatures in summer.
The combination of brise-soleil with solar PV cells both limits unwanted solar gains
in summer and provides a useful supply of renewable electricity.
The deliberately limited building width, combined with open plan design, and
orientation provide for efficient natural ventilation and day-lighting both of which
increase the satisfaction of occupants.
Award labels | none
Additional documents |
(1.51 MB)
Case Languages | English