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The ceremony, held as part of the recent Ecobuild conference in London, was attended by representatives from across the construction and sustainability sector and showcased the industry’s best housing and design schemes.

Bramall’s project of six retrofitted homes in Brampton, Rotherham, beat off competition in the refurbishment section of the category from organisations including the Building and Research Establishment (BRE) with their Victorian terrace refurbishment project, PRP with their Priestman Point project and Octavia Housing with their Princedale scheme.

The scheme has been completed by leading social housing contractor Bramall Construction, in partnership with arm’s length management organisation 2010 Rotherham and design and sustainability specialists URBED, and Aecom as part of the Technology Strategy Board’s £17m ‘Retrofit for the Future’ programme.

The scheme in Rotherham was designed by design and sustainability specialists URBED as part of the Technology Strategy Board’s (TSB) ‘Retrofit for the Future’ programme which funded 86 exemplar schemes across the country with the aim of piloting approaches to whole house retrofit. The project also aimed to test the replicability of different retrofitting approaches across the wider housing stock.

The goal was an 80% carbon reduction target in accordance with legislative targets for an 80% reduction in the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

The homes in Rotherham have been designed to meet this target 40 years early. Rotherham was unique for tackling six houses, with most other projects retrofitting one or two houses with the same funding of £150,000. The project in Rotherham came in cheaper than any of the other 86 pilot schemes commissioned by the TSB.

A ‘fabric first’ approach, reducing heat losses to a minimum, was taken before technology such as photovoltaic panels, Passivent ventilation systems driven by a natural stack effect and smart wiring systems so that all power can be controlled by a single switch, were put into the semi-detached 1940s homes.

High levels of insulation and low energy lighting were also incorporated into the homes along with A++ rated appliances.

As part of the TSB programme the houses will be monitored for the next two years with the results informing specification decisions on future projects and compared against the other projects across the country.

Residents already living in the homes were interviewed before the start of the process to ensure the new technology would suit them and their lifestyles. The approach was then tweaked so that all six properties were refurbished using different combinations of technology in order to get the maximum benefit for each resident and in order to ‘test out’ the methods of reducing carbon emissions.

Steve Batty, Bramall Construction’s Partnering Manager for this scheme said: “We are delighted to be recognised in the Sustain Awards this year and the award is credit to the hard work put in by the partnership.

”We hope that the improvements we have made to the homes in Rotherham will continue to be of benefit to the residents for many years to come”

URBED lead Designer, Charlie Baker said: "This team was able to prove that achieving 80% reductions in energy use is possible for the buildings and the people in them as well as pointing the way to making it financially viable."

http://www.green-vision.org.uk/hudds/presentations/Room%20C2%20-%20Nick%20OConnor.pdf