I had the pleasure this week of having a look around a passiv-haus development at Water Meadows Park, just north of Leicester.

And this is one of the most sustainable buildings I have ever been in. It has been built by and for Interserve. Designed by my friends at CPMG Architects in Nottingham it is at the edge of our current green technology. The developers are Raynsway Properties - they are the ones who took the leap of faith!

In essence this building is a super-insulated box. It has thick walls, small windows on the north elevation, huge windows on the south and lots of technologies to reduce the pull on our valuable resources. It takes cooled air from earth tubes and has very effective solar shading in the form of external venetian blinds. The real key is air-tightness – trying not to let the ambient air escape. Building regulations have been exceeded ten-fold in the air-tightness test! This is not the only impressive statistic – the space heating demand is one-fifth of a ‘normal’ building, energy demand is less than one-third!

All of this adds up to energy bills way below the current averages – it is estimated that it will cost less than £3,000 p.a. to run. On a like for like basis you might expect a 10 year old building of a similar size to cost around £9,500 p.a. to run.

Inside I quite liked the building – it is minimalistic – clean lines and high ceilings help. I am never sure about exposed mechanical venting systems – but like most buildings people stop looking above eye-level after the fist week! Interserve have only just moved in, so it is a little sterile at the moment. It needs to be lived in for a while to gain some personality.

But the real question, as you might expect from me, is about ‘value’. It was more expensive to build than the average. I know the rent agreed, but I figure that in the current market the figures don’t quite add up. But I admire the developers approach – this is for the long term. It won’t be long before occupiers start to look at occupancy costs – especially as fuel bills rise.

There has also been a learning curve on this building – which someone has to do!

Sometimes it is good that it is not all about the money?