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Environmentally-friendly features include solar panels, wind turbines, thermal insulation and local or sustainable building materials.
Midas constructed the £3 million development, with green credentials high on the agenda, such as having business and residential units on one site to reduce the need to commute.
The project consists of three blocks around a sheltered courtyard looking across the creek. Two levels of studio workshops sit below maisonettes.
The maisonettes have high thermal inertia concrete floor slabs and inner leaf, and are ventilated by tracking wind cowls with heat exchangers, to prevent overheating in summer. Solar panels provide hot water for half the year and are supplemented in winter by a wood-pellet biomass boiler.
In front of the lower block stand the wind turbines and there is also provision for each maisonette to be fitted with an additional rooftop micro turbine which, along with the solar panels, should allow the building to generate all its own energy, if not more.
Where possible local materials and labour were used. For instance, locally-grown Western Red Cedar was used to clad walls and local Larch was used for external soffits. All timber is Forest Stewardship Council accredited, meaning it comes from fully sustainable sources, including the durable Red Angelim of the café deck.
