Romford's Liberty shopping centre has undergone a major refurbishment in a £50 million makeover for the 1960s building.
Faber Maunsell was responsible for mechanical and electrical services. These have had to be redesigned so that the retail space could be changed from a pedestrianised street into a completely enclosed shopping mall. This involved adding a roof to the 36 000 m2 site.

One of the largest challenges was to move existing underground services into the roof space so that they could be accessible for maintenance without disruption to trading. This also applied to the refurbishment work.

Other aspects of the site made service design more difficult.

The urban location of the Liberty Centre caused backdraughts from surrounding tall buildings, so it wasn't possible to use open panels in the roof for smoke extraction. Instead, a system with 30 fans and silencers is installed.

Source

Building Sustainable Design