Cardiff Crofts Street

Nine townhouses arrived on site at Cardiff Crofts Street, as part of Cardiff Living, Cardiff Council’s flagship housing programme with Wates Residential.
Designed by architects RSHP engineered by AECOM, and delivered by @HOME, the 100% affordable two-bedroom family homes have been built on a highly constrained brownfield site.
The INNO design, led by RSHP and AECOM, uses a ‘fabric first’ approach to optimise the performance of each unit against weather conditions, fire and acoustics. This in turn reduces operational energy consumption, which will lead to major cost savings on utility bills for residents. The townhouses prioritise the use of sustainable materials, which means that they have less embodied energy than other buildings. With these considerations, the scheme is expected to surpass the current (Part L1A 2013) Building Regulations standards by 142% for regulated carbon emissions and 42% in fabric energy efficiency.
The homes use roof-mounted solar panels and heat pumps instead of gas to provide energy. Mechanical ventilated heat recovery and natural ventilation are used to provide efficient year-round comfort to all internal spaces. As a result, the Predicted Energy Assessment (PEA) for Crofts Street indicates a negative emission of at least -1.66 tonnes of CO2 per annum per home. This shows that the simple addition of solar panels is sufficient to generate more energy than is required to run the regulated building services (i.e. heating, hot water, lighting, pumps and fans).
Ninety-five per cent of each module is manufactured off-site, within a quality-controlled factory setting. Once they are ready, four modules that compose two homes are delivered to the site each day. Once the modules are installed on-site, services will be connected, and the landscape and exterior works completed, to allow the Council to make homes available to tenants on its existing housing waiting list in just five weeks.
Project Team List:
Client: Cardiff Living, a Cardiff City Council and Wates Residential development programme
Architect: RSHP
Structural Engineer: AECOM
Services Engineer: AECOM
Environmental Consultant: AECOM
Main Contractor: Wates Residential
Delivery: @HOME
Planning Consultant: AECOM
Project Manager: AECOM
Landscape Architect: Landform
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