The Africa Centre

OR Consulting &emdash; The Africa Centre

It was a privilege to be involved in this transformative project that transformed both the building and the organisation.

OR Consulting — The Africa Centre

OR Consulting acted as building services and environmental designers for the redevelopment of the Gunpowder House office building, to create a new home for the Africa Centre.

OR Consulting worked together with Freehaus to realise the Client’s vision for the building whilst minimising the embodied carbon by adapting and reusing the existing building’s fabric and specifying materials and products with a low embodied carbon rating.

Sustainability Achievements

  • Super-insulating the existing building fabric.
  • Exposing the building's heavyweight structure to provide thermal mass to contribute to the passive cooling of the building.
  • Optimised the daylighting of the building, to reduce artificial lighting loads.
  • Configuring the central staircase as a thermal chimney to encourage passive ventilation.
  • Implementing air source heat pumps with a heat recovery.
  • Designing a low lighting scheme (and associated controls).
  • Specifying water efficient sanitary fittings.