Sustainable Buildings

Barbara Hepworth Building 

The Barbara Hepworth Building, home to the School of Art, Design and Architecture, was completed in July 2019 in time for the Academic Year, 2019/2020. The building was constructed to high environmental standards, achieving both BREEAM Excellent (71.8%) and EPC A, in addition to this, the Barbara Hepworth Building was also awarded winner of Project of the Year at the Constructing Excellence awards, shortlisted for Education Estates Innovation in Delivering Value and shortlisted for the RIBA Yorkshire Awards 2020.

The building was constructed with the well-being of users in mind, with excellent access to natural light throughout and high quality LED lighting. The ventilation strategy was a key element of the design, combining a mixed-mode hybrid system of automatically controlled windows for natural ventilation alongside a high volume/low velocity fan system from Breathing Buildings to ensure excellent air quality with fewer draughts from air movement. CFD analysis was undertaken to ensure the large atrium was a key component of the heating and cooling strategy throughout the large areas of open learning space in the building, taking advantage of the ‘stack effect’. 

Charles Sikes Building

The home of the Huddersfield Business School, Charles Sikes Building incorporated the old Albany Mills building with a new extension constructed with a mixture of steel and structural timber. Opened in 2012, the building achieved BREEAM 'Very Good' and was the most sustainable building on campus at it's time of construction. The building receives heat from the Schwann Building via a district heat network running on the underside of the canal footbridge. The newly installed modulating boilers, plate heat exchangers and control panels in the Schwann boiler room has improved efficiencies and reduced the energy needed to heat almost a quarter of campus.

Oastler

The Oastler Building, opened in 2017, was built with environmental sustainability in mind and is one of the University's greenest buildings on campus. Built to BREEAM Excellent and EPC 'A' standards, this complex building utilises CO2 sensors throughout, linked to lighting sensors to control the ventilation systems. The heating system utilises Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHP), a 50kW Combined Heat and Power Unit (CHP) and Heat Recovery Units (HRU) to reduce the amount of heat generated from traditional gas boilers. In addition we have now added in a link to Student Central to provide additional heat needed for that building and maximise the use of the ASHPs and CHP. Oastler has a sedum 'Blue roof', a combination of green roof planting with water attenuation to capture rainfall, slowing the runoff of water and minimising impact on the drainage network. The aim is to capture and release water back into the atmosphere from evapotranspiration.

Canalside Mills 

Formerly the Canalside West and East, Sparck Jones and Haslett are both convertied mills, refurbished for the school of Computing and Engineering. 

Sparck Jones, a 6 storey converted mill, was awarded the Ironbridge Trust Award for the ‘Best historical building back into use’ following its refurbishment in 1995. Similarly, the refurbishment of the Haslett Building hat followed has resulted in several heritage building awards since its conversion in 1998. The building maintains many original mill features over its 5 floors. 

Sir Patrick Stewart Building  

Remodelling of this former church and Sunday school into music and drama spaces took place during 2006, with the stained glass fully refurbished by Local Craftsmen. It was awarded ‘Best Restoration Project’ by the Yorkshire Development Agency in 2006. 

The Richard Steinitz Building was awarded a ‘Very Good’ BREEAM rating, and incorporates a range of eco-friendly features like solar panels and wind turbines, and is made of construction materials that will be fully recyclable at the ends of its life. 

Student Central 

The Student Central building is a hub on campus, home to the Students’ Union and Huddersfoods International Kitchen.  

The Student Central building was built to BREEAM 'Very Good' standard, and has a sedum 'Blue Roof' installed a combination of green roof planting with water attenuation to capture rainfall, slowing the runoff of water and minimising impact on the drainage network. The aim is to capture and release water back into the atmosphere from evapotranspiration.

In addition the building has no independent heating source and uses a combination of the boilers in Schwann Building and also heat from the Oastler Building, the majority of the building is also naturally ventilated and utilises automatic window controls linked to the temperature and weather sensors