Refurbishment | Mott MacDonald
making them safely visible but aesthetically unobtrusive. All plant was located in less historically sensitive ‘back of house’ locations with optimal ventilation to prevent overheating, such as the attic. And mortar joints were painstakingly worked by hand to allow cables to penetrate walls without cutting into the original stones.
“It can be challenging to balance the building services’ needs with protection of
the historic fabric,” says Mott MacDonald building services associate Andrew Thomson. “A great deal of time is spent planning, and the methods used are often slower and more expensive than those we would use for a modern building. But the conservation rules ensure visitors get a better experience of the ancient building.”
Elegant solutions Heritage buildings can also
take advantage of innovative infrastructure solutions. In 2011 the National Maritime Museum, whose buildings date to the 1800s, completed a benchmark project to install aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES), a technology using twin boreholes to create a renewable source of heating and cooling. During summer, groundwater is extracted via one borehole to provide cooling, while unwanted heat is pumped into the second borehole. In winter flows are reversed to provide heating. This is an effective way for heritage
buildings to reduce energy costs without installing visually intrusive
‘Cathodic protection can’t put dislodged stones back in place, but it is an ideal solution for parts that have started to corrode but are not yet critical.’
Paul Lambert, technical director
turbines or photovoltaic panels. Even conventional cooling plant would have had a negative impact on the roofscape. Mott MacDonald provided full engineering design for the refurbishment, which also included a new basement to extend the museum’s exhibition space with minimal visual impact and maximum thermal insulation. Mott MacDonald buildings associate Jeff Anderson says ATES systems could potentially be applied on a community scale across entire museum estates or heritage areas, such as those that exist in Greenwich. Shrewd engineering design can
also deliver a non-intrusive solution to corrosion. Cathodic protection (CP) is a technology dating from 1824 which is now coming to the fore in halting corrosion of steel building frames. A small electrical current is passed through pencil- sized sacrificial anodes inserted into the façade, converting the building frame to a cathode. The steel will not corrode for as long as the current is live. Mott MacDonald has applied this elegantly simple solution to dozens of buildings in the UK and abroad, including Gloucester Road underground station in London and the Grade II listed Arkwright House in Manchester.
“CP can’t put dislodged stones back in place, but it is an ideal solution for parts that have started to corrode but are not yet critical,” says Mott MacDonald technical director Paul Lambert. “The anode materials are rated for a 120-year life, and there’s no reason why they couldn’t be replaced after that and go on indefinitely.” Alternatively, CP can be removed without a
144 GLOBAL OPPORTUNITY 2014 | ISSUE 01
Commerce Trust Building in Kansas City
trace, should an even better solution become available.
New technology The technology
continues to improve. Mott MacDonald, a recognised world leader in CP, has developed a new system of anodes made from a geopolymer containing recycled industrial waste and carbon fibre. Compared to conventional titanium anodes, the geopolymer is completely inert, with an extremely long design
life. The new system has been installed on the oldest skyscraper in Kansas City, USA, and is expected to become a commonly used CP system in the UK.
On the Kansas City project, a 3D model was developed to assist with the system’s design. Building information modelling (BIM) of this type is likely to play a major role in the future management and refurbishment of heritage buildings. BIM is a highly efficient means of organising and accessing information and offers benefits both in optimising the design of any upgrade works and the ongoing management of a building’s condition and maintenance. In 2013 the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors laser-scanned its Grade II listed head office in order to create a BIM model which it plans to use for both these purposes. Historic Scotland is also exploring this theme through its National Conservation Centre, which will research possibilities for digitally scanning heritage assets. Historic buildings are an
irreplaceable resource. Refurbishing them responsibly requires a unique mix of cutting edge technology and traditional building methods, together with a dose of the ingenuity for which civil engineers have been famous for centuries. Safeguarding the UK’s built heritage for the future is an essential task – but it must be achieved with reverence for the past.
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FURTHER INFORMATION
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REFURBISHMENT
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MOTT MACDONALD
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