Britam Tower wins 'Award of Excellence' for engineering solutions

The Britam Tower in Nairobi has been shortlisted for a major engineering award.

The tower, the tallest building in Kenya, has been named an 'Award of Excellence Winner' in the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) Awards 2019.

The project has been recognised in the MEP Engineering category and is shortlisted alongside four other projects from China, South Korea and the USA. The category winners will be announced at the CTBUH’s 2019 Tall+Urban Innovation Conference, which is being held in China in April.

Standing at 200 metres, the tower is the third tallest building in Africa and has raised sustainable standards for office builds across the continent.

Engineering and design consultancy chapmanbdsp, provided mechanical, engineering, public health (MEP) and environmental solutions for the project, which was designed in collaboration with Gapp Architects.

Engineering solutions include intelligent lighting controls, good solar control, natural ventilation for office floors and common areas and good daylighting. The building also uses natural resources and materials with bore hole, water conservation measures, rainwater harvesting and water recycling.

The tower has a distinctive prismatic 3D geometry and a façade with a “veil” of ceramic rods which function as ‘brise-soleil’ shading that allows the office floors to be entirely naturally ventilated. MEP and environmental solutions mean the building is more self- sufficient and less reliant on local utilities.

The building was shortlisted as International Project of the Year in the Building Awards earlier this year when it also became the first building in Kenya to receive ‘EDGE’ sustainability certification.

EDGE, the Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies certification, is an internationally recognised sustainability certification backed by the World Bank Group and awarded to building owners who demonstrate a high level of resource efficiency in their buildings.

The certification credits the Britam Tower with making 39 per cent energy savings, 50 per cent water savings and using 38 per cent less embodied material energy – which equates to 935.8 tCO2 per year in operational CO2 emissions and 620.5 tCO2 per year in operational savings.

A Britam spokesman said: ‘‘We were so proud to see our vision realised by the whole team. The work chapmanbdsp did on environmental solutions answered the brief, transformed the project and gave us a legacy we can all be proud of. Having the first EDGE certified building in Kenya is the icing on the cake.’

PHOTOS COURTSEY OF GAPP ARCHITECTS.