TIMBER FRAME
BIO-BUILDING THE FUTURE
01 Springfield Meadows is a project of 25 zero-carbon timber frame homes located in Southmoor, Oxfordshire and are all built to exacting Passivhaus standards. With housing responsible for approx. 20% of carbon emissions, and the construction of an average house responsible for embodied carbon of 50-60T from its manufacture, transport and construction, energy performance must improve both outside and inside the UK’s homes. Greencore construction have used the economies of scale from its largest current project at Springfield Meadows
46
w
to develop its building system from zero carbon, to ‘Climate Positive’. Climate Positive means locking up more carbon than the houses emit at the construction stage by using bio-based materials, the houses generating more energy than they use each year, the project increasing the biodiversity of the land and using local natural/bio-based products where possible, to create sustainable communities. Springfield Meadows is a project of 25 zero-carbon homes and benefits from diverse shared outdoor spaces and private gardens, it consists of nice affordable houses and 16 private units, 12 of which are custom-build. These, high-performance homes, provide comfortable, low-carbon living, thanks to the Biond Building System. Biond is an offsite manufactured, closed panel timber frame, insulated with lime-hemp and natural fibre insulation.
STRUCTURALTIMBERMAGAZINE.CO.UK
The external wall panels lock up 32kg of CO2e/m2 of wall, with cross laminated timber (CLT) used for the upper floors (and any flat roofs). These lock up 125kg of CO2e/m2 of floor and roof and all 25 homes are built using the same Passivhaus principles with minimal thermal bridges, triple glazed timber windows, high levels of airtightness and a mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) system. Additional PV panels can generate more electricity than is likely to be used, over the course of a full year. Homeowners can customise their houses in different ways so even when the same base design has been used, the finished result is unique. Springfield Meadows has been awarded One Planet Living Global Leader status by the leading environmental charity Bioregional. Bioregional’s One Planet Living framework has been integrated
