Getting life cycle costing right

Stuart Thompson,
Senior Design Manager,
Morgan Sindall

A guest post by Stuart Thompson of Morgan Sindall 

The NRP (Norwich Research Park) Enterprise Centre project is an Exemplar Low Carbon Building, which is targeting BREEAM Outstanding and Passivhaus Certification.

The project for the University of East Anglia (UEA) is being delivered using a collaborative single point of delivery system by main contractor Morgan Sindall and its team, which includes architects Architype, civil, structural and environmental engineers BDP and Churchman Landscape Architects.

The centre has been created to achieve a 100-year design life and aspects of the development will be constructed using traditional methods. Locally sourced materials including Thetford timber, Norfolk straw and heather, chalk, lime, hemp and flint will be used and the lecture theatre will be constructed of rammed chalk while various buildings will be thatched. The development is expected to be completed in early 2014.

A key aspect of delivering the Exemplar Low Carbon Building at UEA is ensuring that the project has the lowest life cycle cost possible. The life cycle cost of a project is often discussed in construction but not usually followed through therefore it’s been fantastic to work with a client team which is happy to dedicate time and resources to evaluating this aspect of the development in such detail.

As part of the life cycle costing process, the design team met with consultants from BSRIA to consider how the building’s Passivhaus specification might affect its life cycle output. It was reassuring to know that the early analysis proved that the Passivhaus specification has life cycle benefits. You can watch a film about our workshop below:

Following the initial life cycle study, we followed up with a workshop that included a mixed group of various representatives from the client team. We learnt more about which issues were of particular interest to the various client representatives, such as predicted energy costs, climate change considerations, maintenance, robustness of filters and the type of finishes used. The debate did not simply focus on the initial capital costs, but also about legacy issues, robustness and replacement. We covered a full range of topics, including energy source, landscape materials, PV and roofing, lighting and floor finishes. The client maintenance team fed back to the group about their current issues and concerns too.

BSRIA’s Peter Tse at the workshop

What was interesting following such detailed debate was we were able to address the long term issues and this changed our initial concepts within the life cycle analysis. Our changes have made our project report totally specific and the real use and maintenance scenarios follow the life of the building. For example, how often timber windows will be re-painted, how often timber floors will be sanded and sealed and whether the LED light fittings will be able to handle the lamp life and transformer life claims. The workshop allowed the group to ensure that the life cycle analysis is extremely relevant and targeted to this specific project and we will now be able to use the information garnered during the process to shape the scheme over the next few months when detailed design commences.

This landmark project is part-funded by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (the largest single ERDF project in the region in the 2007-2015 funding round) in addition to funding from UEA, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and BRE.