Location: Bow Road, East London
Client: Yorklake Ltd
Description: 4 flats with skygardens
Value: £500,000

Start / Completion: June 2003 - August 2004
Notes:

BowZED is a block of 4 flats, just off the Bow Road in East London. Each flat benefits from its own south-facing terrace and conservatory, which have enough photovoltaic cells incorporated into the glass to meet at least half of the occupants' annual electricity demand. The other half is planned to be met by a recently installed micro wind turbine mounted on the communal stair tower. This building will generate as much energy from renewable sources in a year as it consumes. Finished to the high levels you would expect for a modern urban 'for sale' development, the building has also been built to ZEDstandards. This means the levels of insulation and thermal mass are such that no central heating system is required. The flats obtain enough heat from occupants, the solar gain from south-facing windows, and incidental gains from cooking and appliance use. This enables a single 15kW wood pellet boiler to supply the whole block with hot water and back-up heating. This building shows how a Zero (fossil) Energy Development (ZED) can be delivered on a tight urban site as a conventional development opportunity. The sales prices for the flats achieved by the developer were better than expected, and well above local comparable property showing there is a healthy appetite for eco-housing in the market place.