Purdown View is hard to miss. A three-building complex that has been steadily rising above the Frenchay Campus of the University of the West of England Bristol for years, the new student accommodation was completed in 2024 and is now home to 900 bedrooms. With a total treated floor area of 21,461m², it is now the largest Passive House certified student housing complex in the United Kingdom.
On account of its passive design, Purdown View provides students with comfortable, quiet, and healthy rooms while also helping the university make its campus more sustainable. Compared to the buildings it replaced, Purdown View reduces energy consumption by 81% and carbon emissions by 79%.
“They were very interested in Passive House,” Chris Swinburn recalls upon meeting with leadership from the university. Now a founding director at Beyond Carbon, Swinburn was a part of the project team from its earliest days while working with QODA Consulting, and later as an independent engineering and sustainability consultant. Swinburn says that the administration’s decision to build to Passive House standards was largely the result of the university’s sustainability goals, one of which is achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
However, the team looked well beyond 2030 in the modeling, opting to use climate files as far into the future as 2050. The team even examined climate files for 2080, but the predictions were less reliable. “The further into the future you go, the less certainty you have,” Swinburn acknowledges.
By incorporating the 2050 data into the design of the buildings, Purdown View will be able to adapt to anticipated changes in climate, such as an increased need for cooling, without sacrificing thermal comfort or energy efficiency. “We really did try to push to make this building resilient to future climate change,” Swinburn says. “It was one of the things we’re most proud of.”
Another point of pride is that the only active cooling systems found in any of the buildings are situated in server rooms. The rest of the complex is cooled with natural ventilation and “a trickle of air” from the mechanical ventilation systems.
For Professor Sir Steve West, Vice-Chancellor at UWE Bristol, the completion of Purdown View represents a monumental achievement for the university. “It demonstrates our determination to address the challenges of climate change, move towards our 2030 carbon targets, and our commitment to student wellbeing and experience,” he says.
The building has been partially occupied since January 2024 and was even then receiving rave reviews from the students who lived there, Professor West says. “They are proud to be part of an innovative development designed to be as energy efficient as possible and tackle climate change issues.”
Top image credit: Tom Bright.