LSI Architects win RICS Design Through Innovation Award

LSI’s Crome Court project was winner of the Design through Innovation Category at the East of England RICS Awards. LSI Partners Trevor Price and David Andrews and Associate Mirja Mainwaring, alongside representatives from UEA, Aecom and Ramboll, collected the Award at the RICS East of England Awards Dinner in Bury St Edmunds on the 6th May. Crome Court was also a runner up in the Infrastructure category and was shortlisted for Project of the Year and will now go through to the National RICS Awards in London later this year, often referred to as the ‘Property Oscars’.

The Judges commented that “Crome Court creates a new focal point within the residential quarter of the campus. It achieves extremely high standards of sustainability and is designed and built to reduce the carbon footprint significantly. Innovation comes through the design enhanced by the application of technology and construction methods.”

Partner Trevor Price said that Crome Court proves it is possible to create a distinctive, attractive and highly sustainable building within a tight budget and programme;”We’re absolutely delighted to have won the Design through Innovation RICS Award category. Crome Court is a great example of how we can design sustainable attractive buildings that are also highly efficient and offer great value for money. The University is delighted that the sustainability standards exceeded the brief, and can look forward to reduced energy and running costs in comparison with other residences.”

Martin Lovatt, Estates Project Manager at UEA commented “There is no doubt that the innovation and design of Crome Court has made a significant contribution to the character and appearance of this section of the campus and the surrounding area.At the beginning of the project, we sat down with LSI and spent an afternoon around the table to ask lots of very quick what if questions, to see what the implications were for the life cycle costing. What we actually found was a sweet spot where the life cycle costing and the capital cost of those materials were in line with each other. Our U value targets became secondary to finding what actually the best value for the building was. We estimated that in that afternoon around the table we saved £750,000…a good afternoon’s work!”