As existing buildings represent the bulk of our building infrastructure, their improvement provides by far the biggest greening opportunity on a building level. While greening initiatives can be implemented in a major refurbishment, a bigger impact can be made in greening operations.

Taking a closer look at energy, water and waste processes contributes to more efficient buildings, cost savings and narrowing the environmental footprint. The GBCSA’s Green Star SA Existing Building Performance (EBP) tool covers the same environmental categories dealt with in the Green Star SA New Building Tool but, due to the focus on operations, EBP projects have to recertify every three years in order to keep their rating.

With several new Green Star rated buildings, Nedbank is no novice in the sustainable building arena. It has now added three existing buildings to its prize cabinet. The EPB tool enabled Nedbank to achieve 4-Star ratings for their Clocktower (46 points), Plattekloof (48 points), and Park Square Campus (52 points) branches.

Zendré Compion, Senior Sustainable Building Consultant at Solid Green, explained the critical role the Facility Management team plays in the process.

EBP ratings for the Nedbank Campus sites relied heavily on the FM team to understand and evaluate current processes in place and identify opportunities for integrating sustainability initiatives or improving current practice to meet best practice standards.

Clocktower Campus at the V&A Waterfront

The Clocktower team managed to take a large building from a 3-Star to a 4-Star Green Star rating for their latest certification. It is evident that the Cape Town water crisis has motivated many building owners to employ initiatives in water management that they would not have previously considered. Corporates that have branches across the country also realised that these initiatives made sense and could easily be implemented in other provinces to make a positive impact.

Furthermore, the Clocktower building has amazing waste management initiatives in place. The canteen recycles used cooking oil through a company that uses it to make biofuel. The food waste produced in the canteen is also recycled through a company that produces and resells compost. These initiatives were paused while the canteen was closed during the national lock down. Yet, during the waste audit conducted as part of the EBP process, the team realised that not diverting wet-waste was increasing their overall waste volume as wet waste contaminates other sources of waste – so they made a good case to get wet-waste recycling going again even before the canteen officially reopened.

Plattekloof Campus

The Plattekloof team undertook their first EBP process but was able to draw on the experience and expertise of the Clocktower team and a shared facilities manager. The team demonstrated that they were doing well in the performance aspects of the rating, scoring highly for reduced energy and water consumption, and showing high waste diversion rates.

Park Square Campus

The Park Square building is a new build that recently achieved a 4-Star Green Star Design rating as well as a 5-Star As-Built rating. The Covid-19 lock down impacted most building operations and therefore some credits could not be targeted. For most of the buildings, due to staff still working from home, buildings could not target the audits and measurements for Indoor Environmental Quality and aspects such as thermal or acoustic comfort. “We are looking forward to seeing how Park Square improves its EBP rating when it re-certifies and can include performance measurements for IEQ and thermal comfort,” Compion commented. “The Park Square team was really invested in the EBP process, which can be seen in the building achieving a 52-point score.”

She applauded Nedbank’s drive in the green space.

The Nedbank teams have a great interest in how building sustainability can be enhanced through Facilities Management. It has been our experience that building management teams, together with their service providers, have incorporated a lot of sustainability thinking into the way they manage. However, often this information is not documented in a way that is easily shared – be it internally for the sake of continuity and improvement, or externally for reporting and sharing the good news stories. In many ways, the rating is a reflection of the work these teams have been doing for a very long time, which is now culminating in the award of sustainable building ratings.

The post Nedbank’s star performance in Existing Buildings appeared first on Solid Green Consulting.

In these same cities that are developing so fast, you will also find pockets where buildings are run down, have no services and are empty and forgotten. Is this just a symptom of development? Does the idea of a growing city mean focus can only be on the new? I would like to believe that we can both grow as modern societies and also ensure that the oldest parts of our cities are still liveable, thriving and comfortable.

The idea of Adaptive Reuse is a growing trend in the built environment because so many older buildings are under-utilised. Some of these buildings may hold historic or cultural value, while others may be investments that didn’t reach their full potential. To focus on the adaptation of existing buildings gives cities an opportunity to grow and reuse existing resources, creating a society that is both modern and development-focused but also sensitive to the environmental impact of growth.

The concept of adaptive reuse gives old buildings an opportunity for new life, which can lead to revitalising urban areas economically while preserving history and culture. To date, the focus of adaptive reuse has been on old buildings with heritage value. However, this concept is an opportunity to revitalise abandoned buildings of all types to give them and the surrounding neighbourhoods an opportunity to start regenerating.

Reuse

Buildings that are under-utilised but not dilapidated or old are what could be considered “low hanging fruit”. These buildings are generally recently vacated due to a change in economic activity or a cultural shift but are still fully serviced and functional and may even be contemporary.

The use of office parks, for example, was already on a steady decline before the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and, since 2020, many such developments have been left empty. Office parks could be repurposed with little to no intervention. Today, as accessible health care becomes more of a priority, office parks could potentially be converted into medical centres or clinics. They already have cellular spaces that could easily become doctors’ rooms, boardrooms that could be converted into small treatment rooms, and many other adaptations that may not need major interventions.

Refurbish

This approach would focus on buildings that may not be completely run down but would still need architectural intervention to bring them into the now. Minor structural changes and additions could be made to allow for greater flexibility and adaptability. Although libraries have been made almost redundant by advances in access to information and a change in the way we work and learn, it is essential to ensure that everyone has access to these technologies and resources.

Converting libraries from book-based resource centres to digital and multimedia resource centres would allow people access to devices and data that might not otherwise be available to them. These buildings would once again become an integral part of learning and information exchange within communities.

Restore

Every city has buildings that are old but still beautiful or that house important services. Restoring these buildings to maintain the function they were designed for presents a unique adaptive opportunity. For example, old apartment blocks in most city centres are a prime opportunity to provide much-needed housing, create economic activity in neighbourhoods that may have become inactive, and house communities that have been excluded from new, more expensive developments.

Building for Resilience

Although we cannot always prevent the factors that result in buildings being abandoned, we can build and design with the future in mind. The idea of building for resilience is focused on design, use and material choices that ensure that the building has structural integrity for a long life, and embed attributes of adaptability. Considerations for designing new buildings should therefore take into account the potential uses that may be required in future; as well as adaptability of layout, form and material choices for a future climate that may have higher temperatures and more extreme weather events.

Buildings are part of the fabric of society, and we need to be able to re-invent and rehabilitate them as needed. We need to allow them to grow and change with our needs as a society as well as the changing demands of the environment.

The post Old Building, New Life: Exploring Adaptive Reuse of Existing Buildings appeared first on Solid Green Consulting.