L&Q housing project takes gold at Green Apple awards

Published by Max Salsbury for 24dash.com in Environment and also in Development

Housing association L&Q’s Oberon Court took first prize at the Green Apple Awards this week.

Architectural firm Stock Woolstencroft scooped the award for its design of the project.

The Green Apple Awards promote and honor environmentally-sound and sustainable building projects.

Set in Newham, Oberon Court’s sustainable features include:

• Each home is fitted with a ‘gas-save’ unit which recycles heat from the flue gases which would normally be expelled into the atmosphere and wasted. The recovered heat is then used to pre-heat cold water entering the boiler allowing greater boiler efficiency.
• Buildings are super insulated with a high level of air tightness, which provides thermal mass maintaining warmth in winter but remaining cool in summer.
• All windows are triple glazed for superior thermal and sound insulation.
• Each home with a shower cubical contains a Hot Water Heat Recovery unit underneath the shower tray. This unit recovers heat from draining waste water and uses the recovered heat to pre-heat the cold water running into the shower
• A Heat Recovery Ventilation system supplies fresh air to the living room and bedrooms while extracting moist air from the kitchen and bathrooms. Heat is extracted from the exhausted air and is subsequently used to pre-heat the incoming fresh air, allowing the home to be well- ventilated while requiring less heating.

Additionally the homes utilise natural power: an array of photovoltaic panels on the roofs generate electricity from a clean and renewable source. Each home is also fitted with energy saving light fittings and bulbs.

This year’s awards were held in the East Wintergarden building in Canary Wharf.  

The gold, silver and bronze winners in the housing association category were:

      1.   Stock Woolstencroft, Oberon Court
 
      2.   The Tooley & Foster Partnership, New Cranes Court

      3.   Coastal Housing Group, Harbour Quay SA1 Waterfront Swansea