Loreto College are undertaking phase 4 of our estate renewal within the college campus on a restricted brown field site at the southern end of the college and directly opposite the Grade II listed Chapel and Arts centre.

The brief was to deliver a contemporary building that realizes our aspirations for state of the art teaching facilities for Performing Arts, Music, Media, English, IT, 3D Design and Graphics and which also incorporated a Learning Resource Centre and Library. All this was coupled with a desire to promote a sustainable design to the immediate and wider community and to generate as "eco friendly" a building as possible.

Early conceptual designs focused upon maximising the use of natural resources such as building orientation, natural ventilation and solar gain/control. Through regular consultation we have been able to select the appropriate sustainable technologies that would support the site's natural resources.

The sustainable technology solutions within the build include heavy thermal mass construction techniques, a 30,000 litre rainwater harvesting tank, a 270m² photovoltaic array, 128 meter deep vertical ground source heat pumps and 30m² of solar evacuated tubes and that provide heating, cooling and power to the college and the building is to be capped by a 500m² "green sedum" roof planted with native species enhancing the local ecology.

All the sustainable design elements combined will potentially deliver a reduction of 21.9% in C02 emissions in comparison to Building Regulations L2A 2006, and an onsite renewable energy contribution of 28.6%.

All this has led to the project achieving a design status BREEAM 'Excellent' accreditation.

Loreto College received the award for Further Education on March 3rd at Ecobuild in Earls Court, London. Receiving the award was Tom McGee and Niall Wright from AA Projects.