CIBSE double-award winner comes in way below design target

CIBSE, Building Performance Awards, Everyman Theatre
© Philip Vile

Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre, winner of two categories in the 2016 CIBSE Building Performance Awards, is achieving a energy consumption 42% below that predicted — which is itself way below CIBSE TM46 energy benchmarks for this type of building. Actual energy consumption is 159 kWh/m2 a year, compared with the predicted figure of 275 kWh/m2. The services were designed by Waterman Building Services.

The project took the top award of Building Performance Champion Award and also the new Project of the Year — Leisure category. This latter award recognises high levels of user satisfaction and comfort whilst delivering outstanding measured building performance in a new or refurbished building.

The judges were impressed at the technical skill displayed in maintaining comfort in a challenging environment with exacting acoustic requirements.

One of the key design features is natural ventilation to remove heat from the auditorium, including heat from the theatre lighting. The external evidence of this system, which can dissipate 115 kW of heat, are the four large exhaust outlets (‘chimneys’) at the top of the building. Incoming air is pre-cooled using the thermal mass of the large plenum under the workshop floor.

Heat gains are reduced by active solar shading.

CIBSE president Nick Mead, said, ‘For me, the most important thing about these awards is that they reward real and measured building performance, not promises and plans, which shows us who is making a real difference in fighting climate change.’

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