Refurbishing IDA Regional Headquarters to Near-Zero Energy Building Standards

Challenge

As this project involved the refurbishment of an existing building from the early 2000s, several challenges arose. During initial opening up works, we identified building issues regarding fireproofing, insulation, and debris in the cavity which all required remediation. 

Construction was carried out in an occupied business park, with the structure itself part of a larger collection of buildings with interconnected carparks and landscaping areas. This posed a risk to site management, working hour restrictions, interfaces with services, traffic management, potential service outages to adjacent facilities, and delay to deliveries.

While it was not possible to make significant changes to the footprint of the site, a number of minor revisions to enhance the site in terms of accessibility, external amenity space, and provisions for the improved energy rating were required. 

Solution

We provided our client IDA Ireland with multidisciplinary civil, structural, mechanical and electrical engineering services to refurbish the existing building from the early 2000s and bring it in line with the current nearly-zero energy building (NZEB) standards, achieving an A3 building energy rating (BER).

The refurbishment involved a full replacement of all mechanical and electrical systems, windows and doors, along with upgrades to the insulation of the building fabrics including the walls, roofs and floor slabs. 

Some external works were also provided to tie into the building upgrades, including new entrance doors, patio areas, carpark resurfacing and bike shelters, along with a number of sustainability measures that were required to achieve the A3 BER rating. Despite the challenge of delivering such a project while retaining the existing building’s footprint and working in an occupied business park, it was delivered on time and budget while meeting the client’s requirements.

The decision to re-use an existing office building and refurbish it rather than construct an entirely new building resulted in a significant embodied carbon reduction.

We put in place a number of sustainability solutions to reduce the existing building’s carbon emissions. The plumbing fixtures throughout were reviewed, with a specification developed to reduce water consumption in the staff bathrooms and welfare facilities.

The building was equipped with photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, electric vehicle charging points and heat pumps for both the heating and cooling of the building itself, and for domestic hot water heating. It was also designed to provide the optimum thermal performance, with glazing and cladding options selected to achieve a well-insulated building.

Energy was reclaimed from the ventilation system using a heat exchanger and further energy reduction was achieved by using CO₂ demand-controlled ventilation to all occupied spaces.

In order to reduce the quantities of cement needed for the concrete structures of the project, we replaced up to 70% of the material with GGBS (Ground Granulated Blast-furnace Slag). GGBS is considered a green construction material as it is a by-product from blast-furnaces used to manufacture iron. In comparison to Portland cement, the manufacture of GGBS requires less than 20% of the energy and produces less than 10% of the carbon dioxide emissions.