The HIVE - Resource costs

The HIVE is a building that has been especially designed to allow research into novel building materials and systems which will reduce the environmental impact of the Built Environment. The building has 16 individual cells that have been carefully constructed to be completely insulated from each other, except for one, and in some cases two faces which are exposed to the external environment. The faces are used to install walls made from a whole range of materials and constructive systems, and the performance of these walls is evaluated in real life conditions.
Novel building materials and systems are developed in the laboratory and before they can be successfully used on real buildings, they do need to be evaluated at full scale, something which can be difficult because of problems with availability of space, planning permission, suitable exposure sites, and the necessary scientific and technical infrastructure. The HIVE resolves all of these issues.
The construction and use of buildings is responsible for nearly half of the UK's total carbon emissions. This amounted to 289 million tonnes of Carbon Dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in 2010.
Energy (and associated carbon emissions) is put into the construction of buildings through the manufacture and transportation of building components and materials to site, and into their erection. The total CO2e of this energy cost is known as the building's carbon footprint, and in 2010 this amounted to more than 53 million tonnes CO2e. The use of renewable, bio-based materials in the fabrication of building envelopes has the benefit of 'capturing' CO2 from the air and sequestering it within the fabric of the building for its life. This allows the creation of potentially 'negative' carbon footprint buildings. The HIVE has been designed to evaluate and optimize these types of materials.
Using buildings involves the expenditure of considerable amounts of energy, particularly for heating, lighting and air-conditioning them. In 2010, this energy cost amounted to some 236 million tonnes CO2e. Significant reductions can be made to this energy cost through improvements to the fabric of buildings. This includes improving air tightness, improving insulation, using 'breathable materials' to reduce the need for air-conditioning. Some of these approaches do, however, have a down-side, and this is particularly the case with hermetically sealed buildings where the air quality can suffer, making buildings uncomfortable, or even unhealthy, to live and work in. The use of vapour active building materials, and of materials that have been treated to passively clean the air of contaminants is becoming an important area of research. The HIVE has been specially designed to facilitate all these areas of research
It is said that the benefits fom research are rarely felt for ten years or more after the research has been done. The HIVE is designed to reduce this time delay and to make a meaningful contribution towards achieving the UK's Carbon Budget of reducing carbon emissions by 35% over 1990 levels by 2020. It achieves this by being a platform where developments in materials and technologies can be rapidly transformed into commercial products which can be field tested on the same building where were first developed. Working hand in hand with the key players in the construction industry, novel low impact buildings will be constructed more rapidly, benefitting the general public and the environment with the minimum of delay.
The HIVE forms part of the University of Bath's Building Research Park at the Science Museum's Wroughton Airfield site, so developments will be widely shared with the general public through the Science Museum's public outlets. The HIVE also acts as a demonstrator of these technologies allowing Government and other policy makers to see and understand at first hand the real benefits that low impact construction can bring to the economy, the environment and to global reduction of carbon emissions.

The HIVE will be a unique facility within the UK and other countries exposed to Atlantic climactic conditions. It will allow for the first time the testing and evaluation of the performance of building materials and systems at full scale. This is essential since modeled performance has been shown to be at considerable variance from actual performance, which is a current barrier to innovation in this sector. The HIVE will facilitate world leading research which will have wide impact on many levels

Economic and Societal Impact
-The UK government needs to reduce its carbon emissions by 50% below 1990 levels by 2027
-EU carbon emissions need to be reduced by 20% below 1990 levels by 2020
Since over 50% of carbon emissions are produced in construction, this is a key area for improvement. The HIVE will facilitate research into innovative construction materials and systems which will directly address this issue. The ease with which research and development programmes can be set up on the flexible platform that is the HIVE means that products can be rapidly progressed from basic research through prototype to market in the absolute minimum of time
The HIVE will also make a key contribution in the search for successful retro-fit techniques for existing building stock. Existing building stock is exceptionally wasteful of energy emitting up to 8 tonnes CO2 per annum per dwelling, and early retro-fit activities have often resulted in structural problems. Ongoing research is essential in this area where energy use in buildings can be reduced by over 50%, and the HIVE is perfectly placed to facilitate this
Research facilitated by the HIVE into novel materials and systems for new and retro-fit will rapidly and directly impact on the carbon emissions of the UK and indeed wider afield
Not only will housing become more energy efficient through the research facilitated by the HIVE, but buildings will become healthier through research into indoor air quality (IAQ), rapidly becoming an important issue globally. IAQ research is ideally suited to the HIVE's facilities

Industrial Impact
The HIVE is a multipurpose framework which is aimed at supporting ground breaking research into the important area of low carbon construction
-UK industry is being encouraged to develop a 'green economy' which is a key area for growth
-The Natural Fibre Insulation market in the UK is only 1.5% of the total insulation market, and its growth is being held back by a lack of evince based performance research
The HIVE is ideally placed to allow industry to test and to develop novel, low carbon building materials and systems in a cost effective manner. The low entry cost and rapid response times that are characteristic of the HIVE's facilities will allow innovative manufacturers to develop products and introduce them to market accompanied by robust performance data
The Low Carbon Construction Innovation and Growth Team report requires additional research to deliver future low carbon housing. The HIVE will not only act as a support framework for UK wide research, but will also act as a demonstrator, allowing the built environment community to work more broadly with colleagues in other engineering and science disciplines to accelerate uptake of new technology and future solutions to societal challenges

Academic Impact
The potential for academic impact of the HIVE is huge. This is because it will act as a platform to support a whole range of different research activities from local, national and international researchers, a small range of which is detailed in the Academic Beneficiaries section of this submission. HIVE will be used to educate generations of undergraduate and post graduate students, providing the skills industry and academia need to enable this area to grow. The opportunity of these students to work with researchers and industrial users of the HIVE will provide a route for them to make a direct impact in the engineering industry and society