Do we already need to think about building better buildings? Really? The short answer is yes, as we should be constantly improving and we think you might need to mind the gap.

As the industry continues to face the reality of the performance gap by investigating why our most energy efficient and sustainable designs are still missing their design intents, we have two seminars next month which can help frame discussions. 

At our Building Better Buildings seminars, we’ll be hearing from the Zero Carbon Hub and about the InnovateUK’s recent Building Performance Evaluation project. Both organisations continue to find that actual energy consumption is often much higher than design calculations suggested. Through the Building Performance Evaluation project 100 sites participated with energy data collected from a variety of buildings and design teams have been reformed to investigate the building. Occupants have been involved and their feedback provided, and procurement methods have been reviewed. With a project duration of four years the breadth of building types, procurement models and the duration of data collection means there is much to learn from. 

Constructing Excellence in Wales, keen to promote debate on the performance gap and get all professions discussing this together feel these seminars will provide everyone with at least one action to take away. It’s clear from recent research that the performance gap is attributable to every stage of a construction project, so we each have a role in ensuring we “mind the gap” and continue to work with clients, the building occupants and the full design teams and contractors to deliver better buildings. 

Our Building Better Building workshops take place on 22^nd March in Cardiff and 23^rd March in Ewloe, near Wrexham and will include case study projects from the housing, community and healthcare sectors.