Addressing the climate resilience gap

Recent MPA Precast roundtable, attended by our Suzanne Davenport, covered by Explore Offsite. The write up highlights Studio Partington’s Hox Park student accommodation in Surrey, with precast concrete superstructure supplied by FP McCann, as an example of resilience by client intent.

With climate resilience rising across the built environment agenda, the roundtable exposed a gap between what the industry already knows and what it is prepared to deliver. What is missing is a joined-up approach that treats climate resilience as a standard design and performance requirement rather than a specialist add-on. Resilience is not just a technical issue but an ownership and incentive issue. The campaign for climate performance certificates (like EPCs) signalling resilience to the market starts here!

Hox Park student accommodation scheme raised during the roundtable by Suzanne “gave the discussion a practical example of what resilient thinking can look like when it is designed in rather than added on…

The project was used to show how exposed internal concrete could support both durability and thermal mass in student rooms, while deciduous planting formed part of the overheating response through seasonal shading. For a typology that is notoriously difficult from a thermal comfort perspective, this looked like a far more credible design response than leaving the problem to later mechanical fixes.

Hox Park also helped surface a wider commercial truth. The clients most likely to value resilience are often the ones who expect to live with the asset over time.”

Read the full article here: Link