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South West College Wins Top BREEAM Award

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Hamilton Architects are delighted to announce that one of our premium projects, South West College in Enniskillen, has won the BREEAM Public Sector Project-Design Stage Award.

South West College’s Erne Campus is the first Passivhaus Premium education building in the UK and was up against a number of outstanding other entrants, including the University of Sheffield, and UCL Accommodation and UCL Education projects.

The BREEAM Awards recognise the people, projects and organisations that are leading the way with significant achievements in sustainable building design, development and management.

South West College is a £29m, 8,000sqm state of the art education and community facility which sets a new benchmark for educational buildings in Northern Ireland, ranking alongside prestigious buildings such as the Apple Campus 2 in terms of sustainable innovation and design.

A challenging project due to its sheer size and complexity, it required a lot of services and very high standards of insulation and airtightness which had to be monitored to be monitored throughout the building process.

Our M&E partners in the project were Bennett Freehill of Belfast.

The sustainability strategy included photo voltaic panels on the roof, heat exchangers, biofuel boiler, water collection and recycling, and electric car charging points in the car parks. 

As a result, South West College will enjoy very low energy usage, particularly in heating costs, which will reduce to practically zero. The campus aims to re-open to students after Easter.

Hamilton Architect boast an impressive portfolio of education projects and recently completed the state-of-the-art £65m Verena Holmes STEHM Building for Canterbury Christchurch University on a historic landmark site. 

Read more about our Education Portfolio here.