Project spotlight.
Tai ar y Cyd.
Pronounced: 'tie-ah-r-keed'
Services provided: Lighting (Daylight), MEP, Sustainability Key stakeholders: Welsh Government, local authorities and 23 social landlords Architect: Stride Treglown
The Tai ar y Cyd project is a unique collaboration between social landlords, Welsh government, and industry experts (that’s us), dedicated to tackling housing challenges in Wales, while drastically lowering carbon for newly built homes. The project’s philosophy is to strengthen the Welsh supply chain, create green jobs, and provide sustainable homes which tenants can thrive in and form communities.
In essence, Tai ar a Cyd provides a ‘pattern book’ containing standardised designs for homes, built using sustainable, locally sourced resources, and which will meet the highest standards for low-carbon performance.
Image above and cover image: Stride Treglown
In Welsh, “ar y cyd” translates to “together” or “collectively”, reflecting a powerful sense of collaboration and mutual support. Combined with “tai”, the word for “homes”, emphasises that these are more than just houses, they are part of a shared endeavour to create thriving communities.
The four goals of the Tai ar y Cyd project are:
1. Low carbon Designing homes that embrace fabric first and operate highly efficient MEP systems powered by renewable solar energy to achieve operational low carbon performance.
2. Sustainable materials Prioritising the use of locally sourced bio-based natural materials including, sheep’s wool insulation, hemp construction materials and Welsh timber. Off-site manufacturing will be facilitated to maximise quality and minimise waste and ensure time and cost efficiency.
3. Affordable housing Contribute to the Government’s goal of delivering 20,000 affordable homes for communities across Wales.
4. Innovation through collaboration Partnering with industry and social landlords to develop the best housing design solutions that benefits communities across Wales. Upgrading of the Building Management Systems (BMS)
Images created by our Engineering Visualisation team.
Our work on Tai ar y Cyd
We provided daylight modelling, energy and thermal comfort assessments, MEP (to RIBA stage 3), and Sustainability services.
The project has culminated in a pattern book containing standardised housing designs that can be used to create affordable homes. There are a range of 18 dwelling types, as well as two specifications that they can be built to: ‘baseline’ and ‘enhanced’. The enhanced specification aligns with Passivhaus classic standard, and the baseline specification aligns with Association for Environment Conscious Building (AECB) ClassicLite Standard. Every home built using this pattern book will be of excellent quality and efficiency.
At the heart of this project was a philosophy of bringing people together to create something special. In reality we had some apprehensions about the number of stakeholders causing a ‘too many cooks’ situation, with the potential for disagreements and indecision. We needn’t have worried, as the project was an exemplar of collaboration, with different parties motivated to work together for a goal that people were personally invested in. This was as true for our internal multi-disciplinary project delivery as it was for the overall scheme.
Well done for everyone who worked on this project. If you have any questions, contact Tom Davies and Liam Morgans.