Our Buildings and Estate

Many of our buildings across our campuses are breath-taking architectural gems; from movie-rich and historic buildings in a UNESCO World Heritage site at the Greenwich campus dating from the 17th Century, through to the Victorian Winter Garden at Avery Hill and the Edwardian ex-Royal Navy site at Medway campus.  Our estate does not just include these historical landmarks however, we also have the modern, and award-winning Stockwell Street Library, refurbished Grade 2 listed Dreadnought building and modernised halls of residence all added to create a diverse campus landscape.

Some key achievements so far...

• Our Estates & Facilities department's Environmental Management System is ISO14001 accredited.
• Zero carbon air & ground source heat pumps at Avery Hill will cut gas consumption by two thirds, significantly reducing our use of fossil fuels.
• Low flow cisterns, taps and showers are installed in all our new and refurbished buildings.
• New innovative sensory heaters in three Avery Hill accommodation blocks that can automatically detect room absence to save energy.

Each building provides its own challenges for sustainability. All buildings have water and energy use monitoring with a rolling-programme of investment to ensure they meet our educational purpose whilst reducing environmental impacts. All new buildings and refurbishments over £5m are required to meet at least BREEAM ‘Very Good’ (if refurbishment) and Excellent and a building energy performance rating of EPC B as standard (if new build). We also have to ensure they can effectively adapt to the future impacts of climate change.

Stockwell Street provides a great example of how the University has made a commitment to sustainability through its £80m investment in a new BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rated building. This building, built on a ‘brownfield site’, was designed to be highly energy and water efficient. It also has 14 landscaped roofs that cover the equivalent of 12 tennis courts, providing a wide range of teaching, learning and growing spaces and areas for biodiversity.

All recent building projects have been refurbishments of existing buildings, upgrading them to meet the varied and changing needs of our stakeholders. This approach enables us to maintain much of the interesting character of our estate and also ensures that we can reduce the sustainability impacts of building new. Recent examples include the Dreadnought Student Hub in Greenwich, the Student Hub in Medway and the Sports Sciences relocation at Sparrows Farm.

We seek to ensure that our estates are as user friendly as possible and you will find our campuses, particularly the areas for learning and teaching are peaceful as they either have pedestrian priority being ‘walking campuses‘ or have speed restrictions and clear delineation between pedestrians and vehicles.

We seek to ensure we can provide spaces buildings that are accessible for all users, although there are challenges particularly in our Grade 1 listed scheduled monument buildings.  With the redevelopment and renewal of our estate we are making our buildings more accessible and where this is not yet possible ensuring through our room booking and engagement with our less able students we are able to provide a teaching environment to meet their learning needs.

We also offer free public access to many parts of our estates including the Steven Lawrence and Heritage galleries and the historic grounds of the Greenwich maritime estate in Greenwich and also the Winter Garden at our Mansion site on the Avery Hill campus.

The opportunities for student and staff research projects is significant. The University is keen to make available its data, for example on our energy metering information. We can engage students to identify further ways we can manage and reduce our energy and carbon use. Research on how we use buildings and systems and how we can influence more sustainable behaviours provides useful, interesting and rewarding opportunities for both student and staff. Potential funding for estate based projects that deliver sustainability benefits mean staff and students can consider their environments and develop innovative solutions to existing sustainability challenges.

Contact the Sustainability Team to find out how you can use the estate as a ‘living lab’ or contact them for the project proposal form.