The Butterfield Business Village just outside Luton is the first office building in the UK to use an earth duct cooling system, claims its designer Atelier Ten. Fresh air will be drawn into the buildings via 80 m long concrete pipes buried 1.2 m below the surface.
The pipes bring the air into contact with the thermal mass of the earth, which cools the air during the summer and preheats it in the winter.
On particularly cold days, the air is then passed over a small heating panel fed from a boiler to bring it up to temperature. The building will be heated by a perimeter trench heating system while exposed concrete ceilings will help regulate office temperatures.
Atelier Ten says the system costs less than a simple fan coil unit system and the CO2 emissions are half that of a naturally ventilated building and 20% of that of an air-conditioned building.
Construction of phase one of the business park is about to start.
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Building Sustainable Design
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