BUILDING REGENERATION Engine Shed interior
BSEE
The Matrix Solver
Sara Kassam, head of sustainability development at CIBSE, explains how a sustainability matrix was used to help ensure the client's aspiraons were realised in The Engine Shed: Winner of the Building Performance Champion
accolade in this year’s Building Performance Awards.
judges described the scheme's approach to sustainability as "exemplar". The acclaim will come as no surprise to the project's building services engineers Max Fordham, who used a sustainability matrix to establish the project's sustainability targets and to ensure that appropriate measures were implemented in the final scheme. The Engine Shed is Historic Environment Scotland's (HES) new conservation and outreach facility. Unsurprisingly, given its name, the building was built in the nineteenth century to accommodate steam engines when the site was part of the Forthside military ordinance depot in Stirling. The Shed was later used by the MOD as a truck repair workshop until the site was abandoned in 1976.
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The building remained empty until acquired by HES to create a facility where the public could learn about traditional buildings and the skills and materials required to build and conserve them. HES's in house team worked with architect Reiach and Hall to develop the scheme which included the addition of two new smaller sheds on the building's east and west flanks.
A brief-setting workshop with the client helped Max Fordham establish the sustainability issues that were important to HES. It used the outcome from the workshop to produce a sustainability matrix, which included themes such as: energy management, thermal comfort and waste management.
The matrix was used to underpin design, procurement and construction decisions to ensure the final scheme has a high level of fabric thermal performance, incorporated passive design strategies and efficient environmental systems to deliver a comfortable and efficient, low carbon building.
To ensure its operational energy use was kept to a minimum, the building’s fabric is extremely insulated. The two new wings were designed with high levels of fabric insulation while the Shed's existing roof had high performance Aerogel insulation added to help improve its thermal performance without significantly adding to its weight.
Beneath the Aerogel, the existing section of the building is naturally ventilated, with fresh air
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hen The Engine Shed won Project of the Year - Public Use, and Building
Performance Champion at this year's CIBSE Building Performance Awards the
entering through windows in the gable end and exiting predominantly through openings, called hoppers, in the clearstory glazing along both sides of the roof ridge. The hoppers comprise a fixed inward-sloping pane of glass with a hinged and weighted lid which is opened using a system of ropes and pulleys. When the Shed was first built, the lids would have been opened manually. Now they are operated by a wall mounted actuator. In the east and west extensions, fresh air enters the offices and seminar rooms through ventilation panels. Stale air is exhausted through the roof lights. In addition, the laboratory and digital studio spaces are ventilated using mechanical systems with heat recovery; these spaces also incorporate fan coil units to provide cooling in summer. A ground source heat pump (GSHP) connected to three 180m deep bore holes provides heat In winter. The heat is supplied via an underfloor heating system. Four sensors, strategically positioned within the main space, control the flow rate of the underfloor heating. The temperature set point of the main hall has been kept deliberately lower than the other spaces to save energy; in part because this original element of the building is not very airtight and also because visitors will be wearing outdoor clothes when they first arrive. A gas boiler provides back-up heat and heats the domestic hot water.
Engine Shed exterior
In summer the heat pump is turned off but water is still circulated through the ground loop to provide cooling to the small number of fan coil units located in some rooms in the new wings. These fan coil unit coils have been oversized to enable them to operate at a flow temperature of 12C and a return temperature of 17C. According to Max Fordham, the system has a Coefficient of Performance of 20, because the only energy used to provide cooling is that of the circulating pump. The system also has the advantage that the heat removed from the building in summer is stored in the ground for use by the heat pump in heating the building in winter.
The sustainability matrix also included the requirement for seasonal commissioning and for two years of aftercare. The building opened to the public in July 2017. Quarterly aftercare reports were produced detailing systems and energy performance with recommendations for further actions. The approach appears to have worked, with a reduction in energy use in the second year, including a 30% reduction in gas consumption. Electricity use has also reduced from year one, mostly as a result of enhanced lighting control and plant control. No wonder the CIBSE Building Performance Awards Judges were so impressed.
www.cibse.org
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