Half Acre, Brentford

This project is a pair of linked schemes in Brentford, west London catering for the demolition of the former Brentford Police station and its related housing section. In place, the new site will feature the redevelopment of the Watermans Art Centre and also the creation of nearly three hundred homes.

Skelly & Couch are involved in the joint planning application for the project as well as providing overheating analyses and energy modelling (SAPs and SBEM calculations) for the mixed-use development. In addition, the design for the Energy Centre houses an advanced combined heat and power (CHP) unit which will be used as the lead boiler improving the site’s efficiency.

Taking a sustainable approach, the Distributed Domestic Hot Water Storage within the residential units allows for a significant reduction of plant size, water flow rate and temperature distribution. This in turn means that less heat is wasted in the communal distribution and overall the scheme is less prone to overheat under extreme summer weather conditions.

Skelly & Couch’s implementation of the Distributed Domestic Hot Water Storage within the accommodation, paired with the repetition and modularisation of the Mechanical and Electrical Equipment across the two joint projects, will provide a sustainable design and at the same time reduce the capital costs.

The Half Acre project is set to achieve a BREEAM rating of 'Excellent'.