CASE STUDY | AGAR GROVE PERFORMANCE AS DESIGNED The success of Agar Grove at the CIBSE Building Performance Awards was in part due to the focus on controlling overheating and minimising plant heat losses. Andy Pearson finds out how the Passivhaus approach helped tackle fuel poverty I f all residential projects were like this, people would be very happy! That was the verdict of the judges at this years CIBSE Building Performance Awards, where the Agar Grove Estate Regeneration Phase 1A won Project of the Year Residential. The M&E design is great, the architectural design excellent, and the pre- and postoccupancy evaluation very thorough, said the judges, who might also have added that, when completed, the redevelopment will be one of the largest residential Passivhaus schemes in the UK. Agar Grove Estate Regeneration is the redevelopment of a 1960s North London housing estate in the borough of Camden. It is a project in Camden Councils Community Investment Programmme, designed by Hawkins\Brown and Mae architects in consultation with the tenants, with Max Fordham providing M&E and Passivhaus services. The architects masterplan is based on a layout designed to reinstate the areas established street pattern, with the addition of community spaces and gardens. To help fund the metamorphosis, the masterplan has increased the developments density. This has involved demolishing tired, low-rise buildings and replacing them with new energy-efficient council homes, plus the sale of new-build and refurbished flats on the open market. The scheme will be redeveloped in six phases, to enable the smooth decant of existing residents; allowing residents to move in when a new block is completed, releasing their old block for demolition. When the project is complete, it will provide 507 new homes, of which 359 are set to be built to Passivhaus standards. Passivhaus is a fabric-first approach to delivering energy-efficient homes. For a building to be classed as Passivhaus, one of the key targets is that it must have an annual heating and cooling demand of less than 15kWhm-2. The design-check-improve process is central to certification the buildings design, construction, components used and commissioning process must all be certified, which is why Passivhaus schemes perform as designed. The rigour associated with Passivhaus is a good way of closing the performance gap, says Katie Clemence, senior engineer at Max Fordham, the projects building services engineer. The assured performance was a big 20 September 2020 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE September 2020 p20-24 Agar Grove.indd 20 21/08/2020 14:54