About the series

The Green Register is proud to present some of our members’ fantastic work as part of this new series of 2-hour live online sessions. We’ll provide an insight into a range of different projects from a sustainability angle.

Each month we’ll focus on one Case Study with the chance to look at it in-depth and invite different members of the project team to give their unique perspectives and answer your questions. 

About this Session: Exemplar Office Retrofit - The Entopia Building

We get asked to run events on commercial as well as dometic retrofit and where better to start than this £12.8m award-winning project with multiple sustainable certifications. There is so much to learn from this one.

During this 2-hour live online session, speakers Wendy Bishop, Associate and Passivhaus Designer, Architype, and Neil Turner, UK Technical Manager, Ecological Building Systems, will look at The Entopia Building, a retrofitted 1930s Telephone Exchange at 1 Regent Street, Cambridge.

The building has been transformed into an ultra-low carbon sustainability hub, and a new home for the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). 

The Entopia Building is an international exemplar for sustainable office retrofits and demonstrates how an existing office building can be made highly energy and carbon efficient in its redevelopment and use, while supporting the enhanced wellbeing of staff and visitors.

The retrofit brief set out the following key objectives:

• Significant upgrade of the thermal performance of the building envelope
• Minimization of the whole life embodied carbon
• Prioritization of circular design
• Maximization of bio-based materials
• Indoor environmental air quality

The Entopia Building has achieved, or is on track to achieve, multiple sustainable certifications, including BREEAM Outstanding (Design Stage Assessment certified, Post Construction Review awaited), the Passivhaus EnerPHit standard (certified), WELL Gold (awaited), alongside the application of circular economy principles to minimize the volume and impact of natural and man-made resources used in the building.

Speaker Wendy Bishop, Associate and Passivhaus Designer, Architype, will present the architect’s perspective: learnings from material choice, reuse, and circular economy.

Neil Turner, UK Technical Manager, Ecological Building Systems will present the Material Supplier’s perspective: specification and supply of the natural insulation systems, airtightness detailing and installation and sharing learning on working towards the WELL Standard.

About the trainers

Wendy Bishop, MA (Cantab) BArch, Associate and Passivhaus Designer, Architype

Wendy is an associate at Architype, where she has worked since 2001. Her analytical approach and passion for low carbon design and thoughtful and inspiring spaces has been invaluable for her work leading projects including Harris Academy Sutton, the UK’s first Passivhaus secondary school, and the EnerPHit retrofit of the Entopia building.

Wendy trained as a Passivhaus designer, on the inaugural AECB Carbonlite CEPH course in 2011, which cemented her appreciation of an Excel worksheet.

Leading on a range of projects, from constrained expansion schemes to new build and retrofit, Wendy enjoys collaboration, listening and responding to stakeholders.

Neil Turner, UK Technical Manager, Ecological Building Systems

Neil Turner is Technical Sales Manager at Ecological Building Systems. A former competent person of the BBA/TIMSA U-Value and Condensation Risk Calculation Competency Scheme, who has been involved in developing CEN (Comité Européen de Normalisation) European standards, Neil has extensive experience in the building products sector. Neil advises architects, contractors and timber frame specialists on the specification of sustainable insulation products and has been involved in numerous sustainable projects throughout the UK.

Recent projects that Neil has been involved with include:

• Bristol City Council affordable Passivhaus housing scheme with pro clima systems, Halstatt Construction and Gale & Snowden Architects
• York Road Montpelier Bristol, internal and external renovation with Diathonite Evolution system, Andrew Dale Architects
• Oak Meadow Primary School, Thomas Vale Construction and Cygnum pro clima
• West Dulwich Passivhaus new build pro clima systems, RDA Architects