Case Studies

 

Greenwich Millennium Village, UK

  
Notable Features
bullet Wastage level and targets
bullet Prefabricated bathroom modules
bullet Precast cladding panels
bullet Prefabricated stair and lifts
bullet Prefabricated roof panels
bullet Adaptability

Basic Information
Location:
Southern end of Greenwich peninsula
site, London, UK
Building Type :
Residential, and mixed
Contract Period:

Construction of phase 1 started in December 1999-Phases over a five-year period
Contract Sum :
Approximately £250 million
Site Area :
13 hectares (32.3 acres)?
Gross Floor Area :
Typical Floor Area :
Client :
Greenwich Millennium Village Ltd, a joint venture development between Countryside Properties Plc and Taylor Woodrow Plc.
Housing associations :
Moat Housing Association, Ujima Housing Association
Architect :
Ralph Erskine (master plan) with the support of EPR Architects (phase 1), Proctor Matthews Architects (phase 2).
Landscape architects:
Randle Siddley Associates, Robert Rummy Associates
Planning consultant:
Montagu Evans
Innovation consultant:
Richard Hodkinson
Cost consultant :
WT Partnership
Environmental engineer:
Taywood Engineering
Structural engineer:
Waterman Partnership, Thorburn Colquhoun
Services engineers:
WSP, Thorburn Colquhoun
Quantity surveyor:
Main contractor:
.
Overview
 
The Greenwich Millennium Village is part of the Greenwich Peninsula Development which includes the Millennium Dome, 3,000 homes, 50 acres (20 hectares) of parkland, an ecological park, a commercial area and transport links.
 

This residential development including 1377 homes (298 houses and 1079 apartments), ranging from one-bedroom apartments to penthouses, is designed to set national standards for future developments, minimizing environmental impacts and maximizing sustainability. The development also includes a community center, a primary school, a health center, shops, cafes, bars, and offices.

The first phase of the development comprises 100 apartments at the northernmost part of the site beside the Thames and a new lake. The second phase comprises a mixture of two-or-three storey houses with gardens, arranged in ribbon fashion, together with 1,2, and 3 bedroom apartments arranged around the garden squares

Factory produced modules: bathrooms, cladding panels, plant rooms, services risers, stairs and lifts.

 
Prefabricated Bathrooms Units
 
The units were delivered as complete rooms fully fitted to include all services that are pre-commissioned. The units were standardized in size and configuration although some flexibility in final specification was available to meet consumer selections. The units were made from structural steel framing to which were fixed lightweight metal supports for plasterboard.
 
Precast Staircases
 
Precast concrete stairs give early safe access to work areas.
 
   
Wastage Level and Targets
Source: http://greenwich-village.co.uk

With 40% of UK waste arising from construction an important concern is to reduce the amount of waste arising from construction sites. Measurements of skip volumes removed from sites showed typically 50m3 of construction waste per dwelling. There was a continuous waste audit. One of the targets was to reduce construction waste generation by 50%.

Improvement benchmarks table
(source: http://greenwich-village.co.uk)

 
Cladding Panels

Cladding panels were factory made to provide early weather tightness to the building to allow early internal fit out. The panels were 1-storey height and 6m long. The panels were made in two parts (source: http://greenwich-village.co.uk):

 
  • The first part comprises a backing panel to form the inner leaf of the elevation. This panel forms the weather tight layer and has windows fitted within the panel comprising a metal or timber frame, insulation and plywood to form the internal and external surfaces. These panels are very simple and quick to erect and form the vertical weather tight enclosure.
  • The second part comprises a rain screen made from a variety of materials including timber cladding, terracotta tiling, and colored cement fibre panels. As rain screen these materials are fixed later in the construction process to provide the external appearance.
 
Prefabricated Roof Panels
 

Complete factory made roof panels with roof drainage outlets built in. These provided early weather tightness of the building together with the cladding panels.
 
Adaptability
 
“Buildings need to change to meet the changing needs of their occupiers”. The adaptability concepts provides long life span of the building structure and therefore avoid demolition of the whole building. Several design solutions were reviewed to give greater levels of adaptability such as:
 

  • Steel framed structures that are pre-engineered with standardized connections, grid layouts and arrangements that allow for later change. In standardizing the connections, a variety of different structural members from a kit of parts can be assembled together and modified over time in the same way.
  • The internal walls are dry wall systems comprising metal framing with several layers of dense plasterboard. The dry wall system avoids wet trades and therefore minimizes construction waste generation.
  • Services are distributed throughout the buildings from a central core that provides sufficient capacity for future needs. On a floor-by-floor basis, the layout and capacity of services is designed specially for later adaptation. E.g., structured cladding for information systems is used throughout the apartments which gives massive data capacity with large number of outlet positions.
  • Cladding systems that are factory made panels able to be quickly interchanged to meet different requirements.

Web site: http://greenwich-village.co.uk
 

Low-Waste Buildings Technologies & Practices
Home