Clients must understand the challenges and believe in the approach.
The guidance includes bypassing those heat recovery devices which may recirculate air in some circumstances, and considering air pathways – how air comes in, moves around and leaves a building.This is because occupants of a poorly ventilated room are exposed to a higher concentration of airborne pathogens.
The risk of exposure increases with the time spent in such an environment..Suddenly, wellbeing and temperature control are higher on the priority list than energy efficiency and the climate emergency.. More fresh air, and its impact on energy efficiency.Normally, having fewer people in a building would allow ventilation rates to be reduced, making a building more energy efficient.
However, in order to reduce the risk of viral spread within the building we have to increase ventilation rates as far as practically possible, so that the occupants have more fresh air.. A higher ventilation rate, whether it is via natural or mechanical ventilation, will result in an increased demand on heating in cooler weather, and increased demand on cooling in warmer weather.This may be exacerbated in a mechanical ventilation system where we’ve had to disable the heat recovery device.
Extra heating or cooling not only adds to our energy bills, but it also puts more pressure on hitting our carbon reduction targets..
In the short term, the UK will see more warmer weather as we head from spring into summer.The digital record of data that sits behind the platform approach continues to add value throughout the operation of the asset and will facilitate increasingly data-driven use cases in the future including feedback loops and digital twins.. Data that feeds through to operation hand over and back into future design.
The bedrock of data that threads all the way through the platforms process, can feed into the circular economy; building a core set of information that can be re-utilised, creating feedback loops that can then inform the design of future assets.In this way, Platform design and how it integrates with the bespoke sections of assets, becomes self-optimising.. Design that future proofs compliance.
The ability platforms give designers to consider and integrate all pertinent data in the earliest design concepts, mean that they can also consider operational efficiency.. On Landsec, the M&E solutions considered ease of cleaning and replacement.These cassettes were standardised across the building, so it merited the time to optimise them so that they would be of greatest value throughout the whole life of the asset.