The Design and Management of Estates for the Future in a World of Dynamic Change
In this first in a series of articles for Fire Estate Manager Magazine, Tom reflects on his experience of working with various fire, police and university estates and capital projects teams over the last 20 years, to consider the question, ‘how do we approach the design and management of estates for the future in a world of dynamic change?’
Project briefs received from clients often include the requirement for the design, estate master strategy, or maintenance regime to include for ‘future proofing’ and ‘resilience’ but what does that truly mean? For the fire service estates, it clearly means delivering solutions that maximise current and future operational capability, or the ability to adapt the physical estate to provide for future, as yet undefined, requirements.
In a world in which we have become accustomed to constant financial, political, environmental and sociological change it is difficult if not possible to fully equip the estate for every eventuality. The key is to understand the overall movement in focus away from the physical properties of the facilities, land and buildings that comprise the estate, and to concentrate on the activity, function, flexibility and adaptability of their purpose. It is possible that applying critical focus to current physical limitations of the estate by providing architectural solutions, will have the result of ‘baking in’ future inflexibility and resilience.
Consideration of the flexibility of the physical estate can be considered through a hierarchy of exercises to develop a consistent and coherent approach to decision making for capital projects and facilities management across the estate. This hierarchy could include:
- Condition assessment from condition surveys which provide a snapshot in time of the status quo.
- Development of a Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) programme of works: – Based on current operational requirements, but developed further to reflect estate strategy scenarios for maintenance, re-development, or disposal, steered by the outcomes from subsequent exercises.
- Production of an Estates Strategy – combined with an assessment of operational needs, heat mapping, to be married against known or potential organisational restructuring, to create a holistic overview and direction for the future of the estate.
- Revenue generation capability – consideration of whether the asset/site is likely to be retained for operational or resilience purposes, has potential for income generation or as a community asset, or whether there are options for capital receipt from disposal, based on local planning policy to support commercial or residential redevelopment.
- Space Utilisation Audit:
- a desktop approach to theoretical space utilisation and needs based on ideal design standards or guidance, such as Home Office design guides and Architects New Metric Handbook. A desktop approach can quickly identify whether an asset/building can ever provide a level of future resilience or flexibility simply based on useable floor area.
- actual utilisation audit techniques include review of density and frequency of use of spaces such as offices, meeting spaces, and analysis of suitability of location.
Alongside the benchmarking of the physical estate, common themes, challenges and opportunities inform decision making at a project/asset maintenance level. For the fire service estate these themes include the following which will be the subject of future articles from Ridge:
- Diversity of construction types and age of facilities across the estate, typically ranging between 1930 and the present day, but with a concentration of buildings 1960s / 70s buildings originally designed suited to the fire service requirements of that era.
- Digital Asset Management – facilities management teams may be supported in the management of geographically remote sites by the development of Digital Asset Management systems.
- Containments mitigation: – Securing safe working environment for crews by establishing facilities and workflow segregation.
- Equality, Diversity and Inclusion – supporting and creating a consistency of approach in modernising the estate to become fit for purpose for the workforce.
- Opportunities for adoption of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) for site redevelopment, and/or temporary decant or potential site relocation options.
- Sustainability and environmental objectives and obligations including the drive towards carbon net zero.
Sustainability is one of the leading influences in modernising and managing estates and is being driven by a plethora of new technologies and associated funding streams. This can lead to a requirement for extensive investigation, expenditure, viability assessments and the like. Steve Meigh, Partner for Building Services at Ridge, advocates that a ‘fabric first’ and common-sense approach is the best starting point for energy efficiency and decarbonisation in a world of technological solutions, and describes an example of where this has been implemented by Ridge as part of a decarbonisation review for a blue light client estate.
The review covered an estate of 40+ buildings with several use classifications. The results were tabulated into disruption, cost implications and carbon emissions payback. This exercise highlighted that the biggest impact from buildings surveyed related to building utilisation and occupant behaviour, which could equate to savings in carbon emissions of up to an estimated 40% reduction.
The very nature of working with an existing predominantly aged estate, as well as a change in operational strategy and policy over the period of occupation of a building, relates to inefficiencies in utilisation. Many of the buildings surveyed were underutilised, due to buildings no longer meeting operational requirements and/or lighting and heating being operational whilst not occupied. Areas of buildings were noted to be mothballed or locked off due to being surplus to requirements or not fit for purpose. Some very quick wins were made by considering relocation of occupants to match the occupancy profile of the building into clusters, this avoids (with the introduction of controls systems) the use of energy in unoccupied parts of the building.
Energy ownership within the buildings by the occupants, taking control of their own space and the energy use within their zone can make a large difference. By simply extinguishing lights, turning down radiator thermostatic controls or adjusting thermostat positions when exiting the space can save a big proportion of energy use, the challenge being the means of encouraging and monitoring effective behaviours, while still identifying appropriate automatic over-rides and connection to operational systems, such as mobilising systems.
In parallel with both occupancy profiling and energy ownership, the introduction of automatic controls can reduce the extent of energy utilisation. These can be used to monitor and adjust building management systems remotely, as well as automatically isolating services when spaces are unoccupied. Several buildings surveyed had intelligent controls, but they had been overridden by occupants of the building. In some instances, overriding the heating controls from 8 hours per working day to being operational 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Having off site monitoring of the buildings gives the ability to reset these parameters and monitor usage. Capping the temperature range as an example can provide benefits from thermostat tennis, being ramped up by one individual and down again by another within the same space.
Fabric improvements were suggested through use of thermographic cameras (best conducted through cooler months), and allowed a targeted approach to making good on existing fabric where leakage occurred through material failure, or installation of supplementary insulation materials. In addition to these thermal upgrades could be considered to replace or replenish elements reducing heat loss/gain. This can often be achieved without extensive capital expenditure, such as the sealing of window frames, introduction of a draft lobby, or repairing / unblocking rainwater goods.
Maximising the building orientation and existing passive measures can also be a cost-effective method to reduce energy use. Often the solid construction methods used in typical stock, can be used to help smooth out temperature gradients and be utilised to hold and release heat in a controlled manner, such as the use of night purging to pre-cool buildings prior to occupation. Some examples of fabric elements or occupancy behaviour affects heat leakage from a building which can be evidenced in thermographic images.
Utilisation of energy through replacement or modification to existing services to reduce the carbon impact can be completed without extensive capital expenditure. Next to heat generation energy use, lighting represents a large portion of the carbon footprint of the building. Linked with absence detection occupancy control, and replacement of luminaires for LED lighting to include daylight dimming this can be a cost-effective method, often with payback periods of under two years.
Finally, options can be provided for appropriate renewable technologies to aid with energy reduction through generation or reduction of power through manipulation of natural resources. Whether that be through solar photovoltaic panels for electrical generation, solar thermal panels for hot water generation, wind turbines for remote locations or heat pump technologies to replace natural gas boilers.
For fabric, services and renewable technologies, financial grant mechanisms are available to offset the costs of implementation which can beneficial and demonstrated with both cost and carbon payback periods.
Energy reduction in hierarchy of impact with highest first is generally considered to be as follows:
- Occupation profile reconfiguration, clustering typical occupancy profiles.
- Occupant engagement in ‘energy ownership’.
- Introduction of controls and off-site monitoring.
- Fabric improvements, reducing load on energy utilisation, for heating, cooling and lighting.
- Services replacement for more efficient methods i.e. fluorescent lighting for LED lighting.
- Introduction of renewable technologies.
Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Hungerford Fire Station – Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service
Steve Meigh:
Steve is a Partner at Ridge based in Bristol, where he leads the building services team.
He enjoys the challenges that building services engineering provides, solving inherent issues in existing buildings and evolving new build client requirements into an appropriate practical solution, looking beyond building services into holistic measures.
Steve has a proven track record of achieving repeat business through continued performance and delivery with major clients.
Thirty years of experience in the industry across all aspects of building services construction design, management and installation ensures that he can speak with experience across many sectors.
Tom Yearsley
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A Partner for Building Surveying at Ridge, and a chartered building surveyor with over 20 years’ experience in surveying and construction, Tom is familiar with government, local authority, ‘blue-light’, retail and education sector client bases.
Tom has building surveying experience in professional matters, acquisition surveys for retail and office premises, including dilapidations and Party Wall commissions.
Acting as designer and contract administrator on extension and refurbishment projects for schools, colleges, universities, fire and police authorities, and industrial premises, Tom has experience of managing projects under design and build, and traditional procurement routes, across public and private sectors.
For more information, visit Ridge Architecture.