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The Debating Chamber for the Welsh National Assembly in Cardiff Bay is a landmark building for Wales. Taylor Woodrow Construction, along with Richard Rogers Partnership, BDSP, Schal and Arup, worked closely with the Welsh Assembly to develop a prestigious building for which sustainability was a key objective. The building included leading-edge energy efficiency elements such as design for natural ventilation, a highly insulated building fabric, and use of ground source heat pumps and biomass boilers. Also incorporated into the scheme was an emphasis on the use of local materials, timber from sustainable sources and rainwater harvesting. The project achieved BREEAM Excellent (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method), received the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Award for its architectural standards and contribution to the local environment, and was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize in 2006.

Newburn Riverside, a major new development for the Newcastle area, was one of the largest brownfield reclamation projects in the UK. The project involved the reclamation of a contaminated site into 55 hectares of development land and 25 hectares of public open space. Significant added value was achieved for the client, One North East, through innovative reclamation solutions, leading-edge management and contractual relationships, sound environmental management and a philosophy of reuse and recycling. The project involved a 4 million m3 earthworks operation, but through the use of techniques such as soil washing and lime stabilisation, a potential waste to landfill quantity of 600,000 m3 was reduced to only 30,000 m3. The project received a number of awards.

• British Construction Industry Best Practice Award
• ICE Edmund Hambly Medal (awarded for the creative design of an engineering project that make a substantial contribution to sustainable development)
• ICE North Robert Stephenson Award for Innovation
• CEEQUAL ‘Very Good’(Civil Engineering Environmental Quality Assessment and Award Scheme)

Cardiff International Sports Village was a substantial reclamation project in the Cardiff Bay area on behalf of Cardiff County Council. The site had a history of industrial and commercial land use, including the presence of both licensed and unlicensed landfill tips, which had resulted in contamination of the site by heavy metals and hydrocarbons. Various technologies were used to remediate the site and ensure relatively little material would need to be removed as waste. The most novel was in situ bioremediation utilising electrolysis to treat groundwater contamination. The works undertaken on the site included:

• Ex situ bioremediation of 28,000m3 of hydrocarbon contaminated soil
• Insitu bioremediation of 17,000m3 soil & groundwater
• Removal of hydrocarbon free product from groundwater
• Treatment and validation of 14,000m3 of Japanese Knotweed infested soils
• Installation of a bentonite cut off wall with gas membrane and leachate drainage system to the perimeter of the landfill tip

The project was awarded CEEQUAL ‘Excellent’ (Civil Engineering Environmental Quality Assessment and Award Scheme).

Phase 2 of the Earth Centre near Doncaster involved the construction of a sustainable building for use as a conference facility, a solar canopy and an events field for concerts. The conference building was designed to be a low energy building. Features included exposed thermal mass (concrete base and recycled concrete in gabion cages for walls), high levels of insulation (Warmcell), triple glazed timber windows, natural ventilation, a heat exchanger, an inter-seasonal heat store (water reservoir), solar thermal panels, a wind turbine and top up biomass heating. Incorporated within the building were reclaimed steel, timber, and radiators. The solar canopy comprised 1000 m2 of photovoltaic panels supported by a timber frame. Other features of the project were a green roof and sustainable urban drainage systems.