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DECEMBER 08 - SUSTAINING REGENERATION



A passive approach to ventilation strategies has helped one of the UK’s most deprived areas achieve funding to realise plans to generate opportunity for knowledge-based industry.

Torbay Development Agency, a Department of Torbay Council, is currently building the second phase of the Torbay Innovation Centre, on an area of land at Lymington Road Coach Station, Torquay. The two storey building contains lettable spaces of around 30 office units, meeting rooms and exhibition area. The project is set to achieve a ‘very good’ BREEAM rating, in part due to the inclusion of Passivent natural ventilation.

Elaborates architect Andrew Chaplin of Kensington Taylor, “Torbay Council wants Torbay to be a place that is truly open to business encouraging investment new ideas and entrepreneurial culture, and helping new businesses survive the tough early years by providing the necessary support, premises and investment, through the development of Managed Workspace and Incubation units. One of the criteria for the funding from two regional sources- the South West Regional Development Agency and European Union Objective 2- for the new development at Lymington Road included that the building was at least ‘very good’ BREEAM accredited, and that it acknowledged sustainable issues of ‘Future Foundations- Building a Better South West’. Natural ventilation was a logical and effective means of helping meet those conditions.”

As a result, Lymington Road incorporates Passivent Passive Stack ventilation in the North End and single sided ventilation in the South End, to ensure effective ventilation through all workspaces taking into account room layout.

In the North End, a single Passivent Aircool wall inlet ventilator draws fresh air into each of the offices. High level grilles transfer the ‘used’ air into the corridor, and a combination of convection and the venture effect ensure effective exhaust of that air through 3 x Passivent Airstract high capacity terminals on the roof.

Acoustic attenuators modulate noise transfer from the offices to circulation areas.

In the South End, wall Aircool inlets at low level draw fresh air into the workspaces with the ‘used’ air being exhausted through high level Aircool extracts in the general waiting area and 11 workspaces.

The whole system is managed via a Passivent EDC controller on each floor, at each end of the building, to ensure the whole achieves background ventilation equivalent to 400mm2/m2 with an air change rate of 10l/s/p. The controllers monitor internal and external temperature and CO2 in each zone, to modulate ventilation as required/set, with minimal energy consumption (the Aircool units, for example, use approx 1watt of electricity/hour only to attenuate their louvres).

Passivent is part of the Building Product Design Group and is the UK’s leading designer and supplier of natural ventilation systems for both domestic and commercial applications. The company is a founder member of the NatVent EC-EU-funded project co-ordinated by the Building Research establishment to develop practical natural ventilation solutions for the commercial sector, and has also contributed to the BISRIA Guide BG2/2005 Wind Driven Natural Ventilation Systems, as well as being a member of the DfES steering committee on natural ventilation guidance for schools, Building Bulletin 101.

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