The Bristol & Bath Science Park, a 59 acre (24 hectare) site in Emerson's Green, north Bristol has been nominated as Regional Winner, Commercial Workplace; South West, Thames Valley and South Wales in the British Council for Offices Awards (BCO).
The Science Park acts as a hub for the region's many science and technology businesses, connecting entrepreneurs, fledgling businesses and established brands with vital investors, academia and design.
The state of the art facilities and surrounding green space provide a professional and supportive environment for collaboration between universities and businesses to enable them to accelerate the commercialisation of new and applied technologies.
Phase 1 of the Park was completed in 2011 under the management of Quantum Property Partnership at a cost of £10M. Part of the brief was to achieve a high environmental standard of build, required to meet criteria set by BRE's Environment Assessment Method (BREAM). This was successfully completed by design and build contractor Willmott Dixon.
The stipulations for high environmental standards included a porous-surfaced SuDS (Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems) car park for 200 vehicles, which has attenuated drainage to the local sewer.
In recent times the demand for porous, load-bearing surfaces has grown. Expanses of concrete, roofing and asphalt exaggerate the effects of prolonged rainfall. These surfaces channel and concentrate water into drains with the result that downstream areas are often unable to cope with the volumes. In addition, these watercourses often collect low-level pollutants such as oils and organic matter.
SuDs deal with both of these two issues. Firstly, they can collect water and then release it in a controlled manner back into conventional drains. Secondly, the systems can be designed to filter pollutants and also allow particles to settle as sediment.
Porous pavements are now frequently included as components in SuDs solutions because they provide load-bearing capability, and they can be filled so that water is drained across a large area rather than being channelled.
Development of the BODPAVE 85 paver was the result of a lengthy programme, which started by identifying and addressing the deficiencies of existing products, and designing a new paver, which combined all of the desired features and benefits.
The pavers are injection moulded from recycled polyethylene and measure 500mm x 500mm x 50mm. The design is such that they interlock with each other to resist lateral movement, they have in-built spikes to aid stability and are able to retain water within the integral cups to aid grass growth.
BodPave 85 pavers can be filled with either gravel or seed/topsoil mixture to produce a natural-looking surface.
At the Bristol & Bath Science Park, it was anticipated that vehicles would use the car park regularly so the gravel option was the most-appropriate option in this instance, however the grass option would have been ideal for occasionally used parking as the grass would be regularly exposed to sunlight and suffer less abrasion.
Using an impermeable membrane designed to prevent water draining in to the surrounding soil isolated this whole depth. Exit drainage management was installed to allow water to be released at a controlled flow rate.
