Member Article

Bruntwood partners with University of Salford to develop eco buildings of the future

The University of Salford has joined forced with commercial property company Bruntwood to develop the next generation of environmentally friendly office buildings.

The new partnership, officially agreed at an event held at MediaCityUk, will see both organisation collaborating in areas of research such as environmental sustainability, energy conservation, employee behaviour and health and wellbeing in the workplace, as well as cutting-edge 3D virtual and augmented reality technologies.

The first project will evaluate how occupier’s behaviour impacts on the energy performance of buildings. This research will help guide Bruntwood’s future retrofit programme, which aims to set new standards for schemes on energy efficiency and occupier behaviour.

Bruntwood’s work will also be supported by the University’s Energy House, a 1920s Salford terraced house reconstructed within a fully environmentally controllable chamber, in which climatic conditions can be maintained, varied, repeated and patterns monitored.

John Marland, director of building and construction at Bruntwood, said: “At Bruntwood we’re always challenging ourselves to improve the way that we develop and manage our buildings.

“Our partnership with the University of Salford supports this by providing us with a platform to share best practice, research ideas and validate new technologies. Both organisations recognise there is a lot we can learn from each other, which in the long term will benefit the businesses taking space in our buildings.”

Nigel Mellors, the University’s pro-vice chancellor for research and enterprise, said: “We are very excited to build on our relationship with Bruntwood on a more strategic level, and we are at the beginning of what we hope will be a long term research relationship.

“Our two organisations focus on positively impacting our local communities and economy and the partnership is a fantastic opportunity for us to deliver applied research within the commercial sector of the built environment on a truly cross-disciplinary basis.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .