A case study in sustainable building design: P4P Chair demonstrates what can be done

A case study in sustainable building design: P4P Chair demonstrates what can be done

At St Edmund Hall, Oxford University, Peers for the Planet’s Chair, Professor Baroness Kathy Willis, is demonstrating what can be achieved when sustainability, biodiversity and good design are brought together.

Kathy, who is also Professor of Biodiversity and Principal of St Edmund Hall, recently gave The Times a tour of the college and its new student accommodation, which gives a 21st-century makeover to an institution that has welcomed students since the 13th century.

The three-year project has delivered 127 student bedrooms, including Passivhaus buildings designed to use around 70% less energy than a standard new-build. It has also sensitively retrofitted a Victorian villa, showing how older buildings can be upgraded too.

The site uses breathable, natural insulation materials, triple glazing, solar panels and five large air-source heat pumps, which provide heating and hot water without burning fossil fuels. Green roofs, bat boxes, an ecology pond and new tree planting have helped increase biodiversity across the site by 88%.

But perhaps the most striking feature is that the project was completed on time and within budget – at the same cost as putting up a modern build.

As Kathy told The Times: “It doesn’t have to have all the noughts added on the end the minute you say it’s going to be environmentally sustainable.”... She also said: “I hope that every student who lives here… will go forward thinking, ‘This is possible. We can do this… in the climate crisis and the nature crisis. And I know how because I’ve lived in it.’”

The project provides an important lesson and case study well beyond Oxford. With buildings responsible for a significant share of UK emissions, we need to get better at both upgrading existing buildings and designing new ones to be energy efficient, resilient and enjoyable places to live and work.

St Edmund Hall shows that sustainability need not come at the expense of heritage, beauty or cost - and that these can be delivered together.

Read Kathy’s full article in The Times here