|
Building Services
Building services for the Sir Alexander Fleming Building represent nearly 50 per cent of the overall cost of the building. A particularly significant value-engineering exercise resulted in a combined general laboratory and fume cupboard exhaust system, which gradually combines and dilutes the exhaust fumes from the research laboratories and their respective fume cupboards into a single large exhaust plenum chamber. Although this restricts the installation to face- and bypass-type fume cupboards (both now and in the future) the reduction in costs is substantial. Exhaust fumes from laboratories are by definition hostile to most duct materials. WSP consulted its own corrosion experts to determine the exact specifications of the materials required.
The location and massing of the building imposed planning restraints on total building height, which led to severely restricted false ceiling zones. In a complex, highly serviced building this degree of restriction seriously challenged co-ordination of the vertical and horizontal services distribution. The high level of services co-ordination was achieved by a combination of working closely with the principal services trade contractors and using a 3d cad package developed by wsp from ductwork-fabrication software. The 3d cad package was an essential tool in the development of the most highly serviced floors and plantrooms.
Typically, research laboratories have very high cooling loads and are air-conditioned. This building incorporates teaching laboratories with reduced cooling loads. Using in-house therm0dynamic analysis, WSP was able to influence the façade design and put forward a case supporting natural ventilation to the teaching laboratories. WSP also collaborated with the architect on a computational-fluid dynamics analysis of the atrium. This helped to determine the design of the atrium, its natural daylighting and the environmental control of the micro-climate surrounding the atrium workstations.
Some of the more sensitive research areas are highly serviced but require very clean architectural lines. WSP initiated and designed a multi-service bulkhead containing all the air-distribution systems, controls, fire-alarm equipment and lighting. The bulkhead was designed to it could be pre-fabricated off-site and simply plugged into the services infrastructure.
Chris Baxter, WSP Consulting Engineers
|
