SUSTAINABILITY

We believe we have an inherent responsibility to design our projects in a sustainable fashion, and to consider their impact on the environment and their carbon footprint in each and every case.

For example, before the requirement for energy performance certification had been passed into law in Cyprus, we had delivered the first sea-water-cooled building on the island at the 5* Amathus Beach Hotel Limassol, successfully serving all of the hotels cooling requirements using this passive energy system (working closely with the environmental engineer).

Of course, sustainability is not just about ‘active systems’. For PPA it is initially about designing a building to use passive design solutions, such as solar shading, orientation, plan depth, cross/through ventilation and thermal mass, to form a sustainable platform to then add in active systems – to top up the needs for heating, cooling and lighting if/when the passive systems are not able to stand alone (say in high summer or winter, or at night.)

Active systems we worked with include gas and wood pellet Combined Heat & Power, Sea Water Exchange Energy Centre and Geo-Thermal Exchange  environmental systems – all being at the forefront of sustainable development (and being particularly valuable and cost-effective in large developments.)

Sustainability does not begin and end with building environmental design. We also carefully consider sustainable specification of materials and life-time building costs, along with larger considerations on a socio-economic level for large projects, in terms of community impact and sustainable contribution and effect at that level.