The Education & Health category in this year’s BREEAM Awards 2016 is a real life ‘Battle of Britain’. The shortlist includes buildings from England, Wales and Scotland and the eventual winner in this category will be announced at the awards ceremony on March 8th.

Representing London and the South East is Wimbledon Arts Studio, part of the University of the Arts London (UAL), and located within the Merton Hall Conservation area in Wimbledon. The existing buildings on the site range in age and quality but as a whole are an enjoyable, informal and well-used gathering places. Operating across two sites, the College’s key objectives were to provide new studio facilities that would make more efficient use of the main campus; focus their teaching to one location; and improve the appearance of the site by replacing a number of temporary structures with a new building.
For the East of England is the UEA Enterprise Centre, Norwich. This is the new home for the Adapt Low Carbon Group, created to assist start-up firms that have grown from the umbrella of the UEA’s (University of East Anglia) world-class environmental science programmes. From the outset, the client brief was simple and clear – to provide a facility that is an exemplar of sustainability. The client has been the driving force in this unique building’s low-carbon aspirations, which besides striving for stringent certification, also put huge emphasis on the sourcing of local and East Anglian materials.

Two buildings represent Scotland. The South Lanarkshire College Low Carbon Teaching Building in East Kilbride where the College’s vision is to be the ‘leading provider of college education and training’ and they work towards this goal by empowering students and staff with the mantra ‘now is your time’. The University of Edinburgh’s desire for the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation was that it would be designed to achieve an exceptionally low energy demand, in particular given that it is the refurbishment of an existing and fully listed building. This project has been a significant achievement, maintaining the balance between environmental concerns, conservation issues, access and other user requirements.

Finally, last but not least for Wales, the Energy Safety Research Institute at Swansea University. The Institute is a unique centre of research innovation, facilitating ground-breaking work into the safe deployment of renewable energy solutions and is the UK’s first dedicated centre for research into energy safety. It places Swansea at the heart of an international research network focused on areas such as marine technology, advanced water treatment and nanotechnology.
There are a whole range of fantastic buildings from across England, Scotland and Wales – not forgetting Ireland – in the full range of shortlists for the 2016 awards. As well as buildings from France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and more.
Why not tell us which is your favourite from the full list? You can vote now for the Your BREEAM category of the awards – vote for your favourite from the list of more than 40 buildings, and tell us why you think it should win in the Your BREEAM category.
You can also book tickets to join us at the BREEAM Awards ceremony on March 8th. Join us to find out who wins the Battle of Britain, and celebrate some fantastic buildings from across the UK and Europe.