海角视频

Harbour Central

London, UK

Harbour Central is a new luxury development in London鈥檚 Docklands, comprising of 901 private apartments divided across five residential blocks. A leisure complex includes a 鈥淩esidents鈥� Club鈥� with a proposed library, concierge, gym and spa, business suites and cinema.

Harbour Central provides exemplary luxury apartments just minutes from Canary Wharf.

海角视频鈥檚 building services and physics teams brought their expertise to the sustainability and efficiency of the development.

We used a range of technological advancements, including IES dynamic thermal modelling software and offsite prefabrication of MEP units.

The development achieved a BREEAM Very Good rating for the communal areas.

Every residential unit in the development met the Code for Sustainable Homes Level 4.

Challenge

The development, which sold out off-plan, provides a range of studio, one, two and three-bedroom apartments along with eight exceptional penthouse suites. Harbour Central represents the height of luxury living and exclusivity just minutes from Canary Wharf. The scheme also includes 259 social rented and shared-ownership homes.

Four tall residential buildings, two lower rise residential buildings and a six-storey leisure facility are placed around two contrasting open spaces: a residential garden and an attractive public square. The focal point is the magnificent Maine Tower, which offers 297 luxury apartments, arranged over 42-storeys and boasting spectacular panoramic views of the city.

海角视频 was engaged to provide detailed building services engineering (MEP) for the project. The client, GDL (Millharbour) Ltd (a member of the Galliard Group of companies), was keen to incorporate sustainable design and construction methods into all aspects of the development. These included energy, water and waste saving measures.

The new complex is built over a common basement, containing car and bicycle parking as well as the central energy centre for the development.

Solution

海角视频鈥檚 building physics team modelled each apartment using IES dynamic thermal modelling software to build a better understanding of how each home will perform in terms of energy usage. This data was incorporated into the digital BIM model for the project.

Our MEP team also interrogated historical data from energy metering systems installed on similar developments in London. This provides an insight as to how developments of this type perform post-occupancy. Using this, we were able to accurately size an energy efficient CHP system to provide the base heating load for the development. It will also provide electricity for the landlord electrical systems.

This process of actively learning from the operational performance of similar scale residential developments, provides a clear indication of the size and scale of the hardware required. This significantly reduces waste by ensuring no elements of the system are over-engineered for the requirements of the building. This process of rationalisation can also lead to cost savings of between 30-40%.

Each apartment contains an energy efficient whole house mechanical ventilation and heat recovery unit and heat interface unit, which provide heating and instant domestic hot water on demand. Every apartment is also fitted with an energy display meter which tells the inhabitants exactly what they are using in terms of water and electricity.

The CHP engine for the development was cutting-edge technology when it was installed in 2015. With the CHP, rather than having individual boilers in each apartment you have a central CHP unit that generates the heating and hot water for the whole development. We effectively created our own district heating network for the site.

Each building was fitted with its own Heat Interface Unit. This is a passive unit that the system drives hot water through, enabling the other side to increase in temperature by convection.

Another cutting-edge element of the project was the use of offsite prefabrication. This kind of industrialised approach is becoming increasingly common in construction, with developers more conscious of the impact on speed of build and the reliability of a factory finish for structural elements. But the same approach can be used in MEP.

Plant rooms, which incorporate lots of pumps, boilers electrical switch panels and pipework, can now benefit from prefabrication. Having as much of this as possible made and pre-assembled in the factory on a metal skid frame can have a major impact on the speed of installation, which in turn brings significant cost savings to a project.

Value

Our work has informed the design to achieve residential apartments that are exemplary in style, comfort and function, incorporating low-carbon and renewable technologies to keep their energy use to a minimum. The development achieved a BREEAM Very Good rating for the communal areas and every residential unit in the development met the Code for Sustainable Homes Level 4.

Our experts used a range of cutting-edge technologies to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of the building services, both in terms of their installation and operation. These included IES dynamic thermal modelling, off-site prefabrication and the focused interrogation of historical data from comparable developments to provide valuable insights to this scheme.