the project

The Lighthouse building was the centrepiece of Glasgow's celebrations as UK City of Architecture and Design. This Category A listed building is of major architectural significance. Its refurbishment set out to combine traditional architectural values with modern energy efficiency performance. The project team comprised Glasgow City Council, Oscar Faber, Page and Park and the University of Strathclyde's Energy Systems Research Unit (ESRU). The refurbishment presented the city with an opportunity in relation to an ongoing project being funded by the European Commission concerned with the use of renewable energy sources in an urban context. A specially configured portion of the building, the observation gallery, serves as a showcase for state-of -the-art technologies that demonstrate the integration of complimentary passive and active renewable energy components at the urban scale. The integration of New and Renewable Energy systems in the urban environmrent involves:

 the use of passive technologies to reduce energy demand

  the use of active technologies to match new reduced demand

  maximising the utilisation of the generated power (heat and electricity)

 maintain the quality of power supply without interferring with public electricity supplies