海角视频

Queens Park Rangers FC (QPR) Elite Training Ground

London, UK

Queens Park Rangers鈥� (QPR) state-of-the-art sustainable training ground, located in Heston, in the London Borough of Hounslow, will accommodate the club鈥檚 first team, Under 23s and academy squads and will play a key role in enabling the club to deliver on its long-term commitments.

The new training facility consolidates the club鈥檚 first team with the academy on to a single sustainable site.

The building鈥檚 orientation and envelope has been designed to integrate natural ventilation and daylight.

Parametric analysis shows that the inclusion of timber fins will create a 21-23% reduction in solar gain.

The building is powered entirely by decarbonised electric and features significant onsite renewable energy generation with 922m虏 of solar photovoltaic panels.

Challenge

Historically, QPR had training facilities for the first team at Harlington, near Heathrow, and a second site at Heston for the academy. The club鈥檚 vision was to consolidate the first team with the academy on to a single sustainable site. The new Heston site achieves this, while providing a range of therapeutic and administrative facilities 鈥� from hydrotherapy pools and gyms to office suites for the management team. It has been developed on the former site of British Airways鈥� staff sports club and more recently Imperial College London.

海角视频 was engaged to deliver a broad range of multidisciplinary consultancy and engineering services, including structural engineering, building services engineering (MEP) and sustainability. We worked closely with the wider design team, led by architects Studio Zoppini Architetti to maximise the sustainability and cost effectiveness of the project.

The club鈥檚 aspirations for the site included a purpose-designed gym for players and a second gym for the academy, as well as a hydrotherapy suite, a cold plunge pool, and medical and rehabilitation facilities.

The challenge for our team was to achieve the brief in the most sustainable and low carbon way possible, using the latest technologies and approaches to reducing both operational and embodied carbon intensity. We balanced this with finding the most cost-effective solutions, to help minimise project costs for the club.

Solution

Our team designed the elite training ground for the EFL Championship team with sustainability front and centre. Achieving BREEAM 鈥楨xcellent鈥� certification, our design reduced operational carbon due to onsite renewable energy generation and extensive use of air source heat pumps.

The building is powered entirely by decarbonised electric and features significant onsite renewable energy generation with 922m² of solar photovoltaic panels, as well as extensive use of air source heat pumps for heating, cooling, hot water generation and hydrotherapy pools.

We played a key role on advising around the adoption of lightweight partitions to minimise the use of steel and to replace concrete and cement wherever possible, to further reduce the embodied carbon of the structure. 

The project was also used to test 海角视频鈥檚 new embodied carbon tool, a resource that is proving instrumental in reducing embodied carbon across all projects. This provided clear insight into the embodied carbon intensity of different elements of the structure, highlighting areas where design changes could be made to have a significant impact on the overall embodied carbon calculations for the building.

This looked at everything from slab thickness to column spacing. As well as reducing the embodied carbon, this also helped to improve the cost efficiency of the building by optimising the required materials.

The building鈥檚 orientation and envelope has been designed to integrate natural ventilation and daylight 鈥� introducing passive design measures and creating a better workplace for all staff and players.

Parametric analysis shows that the inclusion of timber fins on the facade will create a 21% and 23% reduction in solar gain on the western and eastern orientations respectively. This further reduces the mechanical cooling load, further lessening the operational intensity of the site. The number of electric vehicle (EV) charging points included has also been increased from the original plans.

Value

The new training facility consolidates the club鈥檚 first team with the academy on to a single sustainable site. Thanks to a combination of demand reduction, low-carbon air source heat pump and renewable energy systems, the project exceeded its 35% reduction target over Part L 2013 baseline figures.

Our broad multidisciplinary team played a key role in supporting the project to achieve BREEAM 鈥楨xcellent鈥� certification. Carbon dioxide emissions were reduced by 77% above GLA (Greater London Authority) targets. The facility achieved an A-rated Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) and allows the club to boast one of the most sustainable football club training grounds in the country.