Enhabit was commissioned to undertake low energy building consultancy at both design and construction stages for the creation of a new Quaker Meeting House in Hammersmith. The Meeting House, consisting of a cylindrical meeting room with surrounding kitchen, offices and smaller meeting rooms was designed by Satellite Architects and has been certified to the AECB Building Standard by Enhabit.
The Meeting House was constructing using ICF (insulated concrete form), which is intrinsically airtight and helped achieve the almost Passivhaus levels of airtightness (0.87 ach).
ICF was used for some of the internal walls which lead to some interesting air barrier lines that extended right around internal walls. We learned that the insulation becomes bonded to the concrete once set, so that the insulation on the outside of the concrete is actually the air barrier, and confusingly, even without taping the insulation joints together!
Enhabit offered support where required around airtightness and specifications for meeting the AECB standard. The construction was relatively problem-free thanks to the contractors Syntec who proposed and delivered the ICF system.
