Back to 2017 BPA Winners Overview
AECOM is an excellent example of a well-run business willing to give back to the engineering community from which it emerged. It has, for example, developed an extensive programme of writing best practice guidance as well as offering electrifying presentations and outstanding training to the industry, its clients and the next generation of building professionals.
It has been a major contributor to a number of highly-respected CIBSE publications on building performance, including CIBSE Guide F: Energy efficiency of buildings, CIBSE Guide L: Sustainability; CIBSE TM54: Evaluating Operational Energy Performance of Buildings at the Design Stage and the CIBSE CP1 Heat Networks Code of Practice.
AECOM’s commitment to the industry it serves is not all that makes it stand out. It believes that exceptional building performance is all about providing a high-quality environment that uses resources effectively rather than simply being energy efficient. In other words, it insists on taking a holistic view and focusing on designing buildings with occupant health and wellbeing at their heart. The company has conducted extensive research around highperformance buildings including designing revolutionary low carbon buildings. Such as the University of Nottingham’s GlaxoSmithKline laboratory for sustainable chemistry, the UK’s first carbon neutral chemistry
laboratory, and the award-winning Turnmill commercial building, which is heated and cooled via a ground source heat pump – a first, as far as it is aware, for a speculative commercial property in central London.
Other recent projects include 7 Air Street – the first listed building to receive a BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ rating, the result of an uncompromising approach to sustainable design; and the RIBA award-winning Portland Collection – a new gallery on the Welbeck Estate in Worksop featuring low energy heating and cooling derived from air source heat pumps (with no chillers or boilers).
AECOM remains at the leading edge of building consultancy practice by experimenting with tools including BIM and iBeacon to conduct digital pre-occupation evaluations of buildings, using tracking technology to analyse how people are currently using buildings, and augmented or virtual reality tools to enable occupants to visualise how a new design could work better.
All this plus its carbon management experts’ work to remove barriers to implementing carbon/energy savings by identifying internal funding mechanisms and considering wider issues like space utilisation and energy management saving opportunities make AECOM a worthy winner.