Wessex Park, Colden Common

Client: The Environment Agency
Location: Colden Common, near Winchester
Value: £1.5m

The office building is a bespoke design carried out specifically for the Environment Agency standing on part of a business park in a semi-rural area of Hampshire. It comprises two-storey office accommodation but also includes a technical store and laboratories on the ground floor. Accordingly, it has a lift and, to minimise the overall size of the building, the communications room is located within the roof space along with the water tanks and lift motor and plant rooms.

Personal and corporate security, minimal maintenance and the use of products from sustainable sources were extremely high on the list of priorities imposed by the Environment Agency. Equally, the building was required to achieve a high rating under a BREEAM assessment.

In view of its location, the decision was taken to use a traditional building style and complementary materials. Thus the form of the structure resembles a Hampshire barn and the external materials consist of masonry cavity walls topped by a slated pitched roof.