RICS Scotland Sustainability Award - John Hope Gateway

The John Hope Gateway at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is the winner of the 2011 RICS Scotland Award for Sustainability.

The Gateway was designed to demonstrate sustainability through its exhibitions and in its construction. With a beautiful city centre location, a unique mix of events, educational experience and centuries of expertise, the Gateway has become the prime facility in Scotland for engaging the public about biodiversity and climate change.

Renewable energy systems were included in the Gateway's design to meet the aspirations of the Botanic Garden to educate the public on new technologies and their potential. These include rainwater harvesting, a biomass boiler, solar thermal and photo voltaic panels and a wind turbine.

Extensive use of engineered timber, including Scottish timber where possible, in the structure and finishes of the building demonstrate the uses and importance of trees. The naturally ventilated Gateway is heavily insulated to have a thermal performance 20% better than current Building Regulations and this year has achieved an A+ EPC rating.

Roddy Langmuir, Project Director of the John Hope Gateway and a senior partner at Cullinans, said:
"We are delighted to receive this award for a project that we hope is seen as taking an optimistic view on sustainability. We have tried to show visitors to the Garden what great opportunities there are in creating a low-energy building with activities, views and daylight all framed in a carefully wrought timber shell. As architects the best response you can hope for is that people 'get-it' and vote with their feet, as they have done here. To be sustainable, buildings need to be enthusiastically adopted by their hosts and to serve an enduring role in their community."

Last year the Gateway received an Institution of Structural Engineers Award for Best Arts or Entertainment Structure and contributed to us winning Building Magazine's Architectural Practice of the Year Award and Building Design's Public Building Architect of the Year Award. Earlier this year the Gateway received a Civic Trust Award Commendation and is currently shortlisted for a 2011 RIBA Award.

Colin Hamilton and Jasper Rae from Max Fordham LLP, Services Engineers on the John Hope Gateway project, collected the RICS Award in Edinburgh on our behalf 

 The rainwater collected in a drum visible from the entrance 'greenhouse' fills the cisterns of the WCs below it.

A curving glass wall connects the ground floor exhibition spaces to the new biodiversity garden.