Winner
Chiswick Park Building 10 (Arup)

The design and installation of this office building followed the pattern of the previous five buildings on the business park in west London, but to the larger size of 13 000 m2. A clear vision of the environment within the park and the buildings was conceived early on, and adhered to. Arup also demonstrated a sensitivity to low energy and waste reduction issues, as well as driving out inefficiencies in all the processes of design and construction. The fully glazed buildings have fixed and moving shading devices, ensuring that full benefit is made of the views from the buildings. Environmental conditions are handled by an all air low level supply system.

Runners up

HSBC Building, London (Arup)
This project was intended to be a fast track construction programme for a building of this size – 100 000 m2 net, with a height above ground of 205 m. Work started on site in 1999 and was completed and partially occupied in 2002. Some unconventional engineering solutions were used including a triplicated generator control system which is well known in the aviation industry. The system triplicates all signalling between controlling devices using different cabling and routes so in the vent of failure of one circuit, the system remains operative on two out of three.

Paddington Central (Haden Young/FaberMaunsell)
Paddington Central will eventually provide over 176 000 m2 of mixed use space. The £85 million first phase consists of two 11-storey office blocks, joined by a podium structure including retail and residential units. The challenge for engineers was to work quickly and effectively to achieve the client’s requirements. FaberMaunsell and Haden Young worked closely together on this project, sharing offices as well as developing an integrated design process which saved over three months on the overall programme.

Saturn Data Centre, Aztec West Business Park, Bristol (Hoare Lea Consulting Engineers)
Saturn is a 6000 m2 office building, leased by Orange as a data centre processing facility. Over four years of occupation, data processing power densities more than doubled, unsurprisingly resulting in overheating with risk of equipment failure. Hoare Lea’s solution included a 3D design of plant rooms to ensure co-ordination of a complex tightly packed installation. Newly developed high capacity air conditioning units minimise use of space.

Source

Building Sustainable Design