☰ AHR SECTORS CIVIC & COMMUNITY KEYNSHAM CIVIC CENTRE AND LIBRARY & INFORMATION SERVICE THE NEW KEYNSHAM CIVIC CENTRE AND LIBRARY & INFORMATION SERVICE HAS COMPLETELY TRANSFORMED THE TOWN CENTRE IN A WAY THAT EXCEEDS THE EXPECTATIONS OF A CORPORATE OFFICE DEVELOPMENT. TAGS Project Civic & Community Office & Workplace Retail Architecture Masterplanning Europe UK Library Office Building Food Retail/Supermarket PPP The redevelopment replaces outdated 1960s buildings, bringing jobs and investment to the town centre with a new 68,000 ft2 council office, library and information service, 20,000 ft2 retail located around two new pedestrian streets, a market square, new car parking and highways improvements. Our challenge was to accommodate 9500 m2 space within a town centre on a constrained site and across a 9m slope which gives back to the town through the creation of new public space and amenities. Rather than filling the site with a large low rise building with council services on the ground floor and offices above we sliced through the site with two new pedestrian streets and made the buildings taller. This gave 50% of the site over to 24 hour accessible public space. In addition to providing the Council with high quality offices and civic facilities the scheme features 20,000 ft2 of retail on ground floor located around a new pedestrian public realm which will reinvigorate Keynsham town centre. We responded to the challenge of the constrained and sloping town centre site by slicing through it to create two new pedestrian retail streets and a cluster of inter-locking buildings. This allowed over 50% of the site to be given over to new retail focused public realm and better integrated the development into the existing urban grain. The old 1960s development had a public space which was north facing and split across multiple levels making events and markets difficult to hold. The outdated shops were outward facing with an unused rear car park. Our design made everything permeable and maximised building frontages on this tight site. We also rotated the public square so that if faces west into the afternoon sun and better addresses the high street. The public square includes pop up power supplies and hosts regular farmers markets and other events. Since this development commenced it has attracted major retail providers including Sainsburys and Loungers. The ‘Bonzo Lounge’ café bar has been one of the biggest private enterprise successes – occupying a large space with an outdoor terrace with views over the park it provides a social hub to the project. The retail space in the development was 70% let within the first year. The project is the first in the country to target a Display Energy Certificate (DEC) A rating from the outset when supported by the Soft Landings process. The offices have already achieved an outstanding EPC rating of 5 (equivalent to 2.85kgCO2/m2) – almost zero carbon and putting us well on course for our DEC A target. To ensure the operational energy use is as close as possible to the design intent, we have followed the principles set out in the Soft Landings Framework. We developed an Energy Risk Register and a contractually binding energy budget. The contractor will stay engaged with the project for a two year aftercare period to optimise the energy performance. 01 Structure: Hybrid Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) and Steel Frame 02 Daylight + Ventilation: Clerestory windows exhaust warm air at roof level 03 Thermal Mass: Concrete Slabs with embedded cooling pipework make up 50% of floor 04 Acoustics: Perforated Spruce panels to control reverberation 05 Ventilation: Auto BMS controlled top ventilation door and manual bottom door 06 Lighting: Task lighting to desks which is user controlled and connected to a separate underfloor power track 07 Acoustics: Acoustic louvre absorbs low frequency traffic noise and allows secure night-time heat purge 08 Lighting: Automatic lighting only to circulation routes 09 Day Lighting: “Light Shelves” to south windows bounce light deeper into offices. Manual blinds to fixed glazing provide glare control 10 Services Distribution: Exposed sofits with raised access floor. “Kill Switch” enables shut down of PC’s and lights at night to save power DOWNLOADS Keynsham Civic Centre And One Stop Shop 1.5 MB (PDF) BCO A6 Brochure_Keynsham Civic Centre & One Stop Shop 1.5 MB (PDF) PEOPLE Karle Burford > Director Adam Spall > Regional Director AWARDS National BCO Awards 2015 Winner Best of the Best National BCO Awards 2015 Winner Corporate Workplace RIBA South West Awards 2015 Winner Award & Sustainability DISCOVER THE FULL SPECTRUM OF AHR SIX ALTERNATIVE THREADS FOR YOU TO EXPLORE NEWS Gender Pay Gap READ MORE > AHR is a registered trademark of AHR Group Limited