We were approached by the client who had just obtained planning for a new office, studio garage building.

Initially designed as a Regs compliant part timber froamed and part stone faced cavity construction we were asked to improve levels of sustainability and energy efficiency.

The initial design consultancy redesigned the main envelopes, using reclaimed brick in place of new stone around warmcell insulated timber frame.  Additional attention was also given to improving air-tightness and achieving greatly reduced overall heat loss. 

 A full energy strategy removed the original air source heat pump, added solar water heating and by upgrading the existing cottage system reduced total carbon emissions and fuel cost significantly for a similar budget.

Yet to be completed the pictures show the construction in progress in December 2009

 What the client says:

 "We already had a great visual design for our building before Brilliant Futures became involved, but their input opened our eyes to the possibilities that could be incorporated efficiently and without major upheaval to our cost plans and construction programme. We moved from a concrete block structure to a very well insulated timber frame. We’re very happy with the results, and even more happy that the building should be almost self sufficient in terms of energy consumption. If we had known about Brilliant Futures earlier in our design process we could probably have achieved complete self-sufficiency."