Pump priming

The Old Pump House near Tower Hill in London was once a vital component in the city’s railway network. In Victorian times it was connected to a railway turntable at first floor level and hydraulically lowered railway freight down to the street. Steam power raised giant lead weights in a tower, storing energy that could be tapped when needed for railway operations.

Sadly, the 120-year-old Grade II listed structure has shared the fate of the railway industry it supported. It had been derelict for 40 years, passing from one owner to another. In 1999, however, the Old Pump House was acquired by City North Group, a residential property development and management company seeking to diversify its portfolio to include some commercial properties. The Old Pump House is, in fact, the company’s second major speculative office development in the capital.

City North has an in-house architect, Andrew Yelland, who was responsible for the refurbishment project. “Our brief was to renovate it to its former glory, and convert to offices,” he says, a process that was complicated from the start because the original pistons and other heavy equipment had to be removed by crane and lifted over the building.

Today, the outside of the Old Pump House belies its industrial past. The building has four above-ground floors and a basement that the building contractors had to dig out. The ground floor is barrel vaulted – it previously housed the boilers – and has a partial glass floor that exposes the basement below.

The original tower remains, which proved an ideal spot for the Old Pump House’s oak and steel staircase and lift. The base of the chimney is also retained, and incorporates a high-level office. The entire complex includes over 1000 m2 of office space. Natural ventilation is used throughout the building, exploiting its massive structure. The walls are several feet thick and act as a heat sink during the day, collecting heat that is radiated away at night.

New m&e services have been installed throughout the building under the auspices of building services designer and consultant Furness Green Partnership. Oxford firm Lowe & Oliver took on the electrical installation work.

Lowe & Oliver’s project manager Phil Mold says the £300 000 electrical fit-out, which included alterations to the tenants’ requirements, was “from top to bottom” at the Old Pump House. “Working under Philip Cox, the site foreman, we carried out power and lighting installations on all floors,” he confirmed.

Lowe & Oliver’s work included:

• incoming supplies and sub-mains;
• installation of lighting that complied with CIBSE’s LG3 for offices, including slimline luminaires;
• power to all floors;
• installation of the fire alarm system that was commissioned by Protec;
• power supplies and controls containment for the mechanical services;
• power supplies and controls containment for cctv and security systems installed by Chris Lewis Security Services, also based in Oxford;
• data networking, completed by Lowe & Oliver’s sister firm J Brand of London, and containment.

Containment for the power and data networks is critical in any modern office building, but it is often difficult to specify appropriate systems for speculative developments such as the Old Pump House. “People must future-proof their installations, and that includes cable management,” says Steve Davis, business development manager at Mita (UK), which supplied many of the cable management products for the project.

“A basic fit-out might include, for example, power routed through floor boxes and perimeter trunking,” says Davis. “Once a tenant specifies data requirements, eg: a Category 6 IT network, there may then be insufficient capacity within the cable containment.”

This could have happened at the Old Pump House, where the electrical and data network containment was specified before any office space was let to tenants. Initially, the cable containment systems were chosen to suit a Category 5e data network, but the spec was later upgraded to include cable containment suitable for Category 6 networks.

“Category 5 was never much of a problem for standard containment systems,” says Mita’s Davis. “For Category 6, Category 7 and fibre, cable management is much more critical. More and more installations are Category 6 and data installers are finding there is not enough capacity for the wider cables.”

So some kind of perimeter trunking with future-proofing built in was necessary. Ultra 60 from Mita was used, supplied by Newey and Eyre, Oxford. Ultra 60 is a two-compartment trunking with a 190 x 62 mm profile and twin lids. With a dedicated data compartment 75 x 62 mm, Ultra 60 can hold up to 48 Category 6 cables, while standard fittings provide for a 50 mm minimum bend radius.

But City North had one more requirement – it wanted to ensure that the installation would be easy to alter when its tenants changed. “We own the building and we wanted to be able to modify the arrangements fairly easily,” says Yelland. For this reason, the Old Pump House has become the first installation to include Ultra 60 with busbars for power distribution.

The decision to future-proof the installation was fortunate – City North’s first tenant is Irish securities firm NCB Stockbrokers, which occupies the ground floor and basement. “It just so happened that the stockbrokers wanted a Category 6 data network,” says Yelland, “they wanted speed.”

Mold agrees: “The client and end-user were very keen on the Ultra 60 – the user’s IT specialist didn’t want any tight corners that would compromise network performance…we couldn’t find anything else to meet their demands.”

And the demands of the stockbrokers’ computer systems are extraordinary. More than 200 data outlets are installed on the two floors to accommodate their needs. Each desk has multiple computers: “The brokers needed four voice/data points per desk,” says Yelland.

The quick installation of Mita’s cable containment products was undoubtedly one of the reasons that the Old Pump House refurbishment project was completed earlier than expected. New tenants are already expressing interest in the remaining floors, and City North’s second venture into commercial property looks set to be a success.