Passive cooling from REHAU for landmark London offices

The White Collar Factory in London’s Old Street has had a comfortable working environment thanks to over 150km of REHAU’s Thermally Activated Building Structure (TABS) system, installed to supply low energy passive cooling.

Featuring almost enough piping to run entirely round the M25, this installation is one of the largest of REHAU’s TABS solution to date in the continent, and has been completed by specialist installers Anders Heating Company.

REHAU TABS was specified by consultants ARUP, with the intention to offer a flexible, practical building which can achieve 25% reductions in operational carbon emissions over a standard office building, with both a BREEAM Excellent and LEED Platinum rating.

The former factory has core design principles of reducing artificial heating, cooling and lighting. It echoes many of the adaptable, well built industrial buildings of the past which have been converted so successfully into contemporary work spaces.

Alongside the thermal mass structure, it features tall ceilings, a passive façade and flexible floor plates.

In TABS, REHAU’s PE-Xa polymer pipework is embedded within the concrete floor slabs. Chilled water is circulated through the pipework, enabling the slab to act as a heat sink; taking the heat away from the useable space to create an ambient working environment.

Compared to standard air conditioning, it is more sustainable, energy efficient and quieter. Plus, it has no moving parts which could falter and generates less air movement.

Over 150km of REHAU pipework features in the building, within every slab across each of the 16 floors. The natural exposed GGBS (Ground Granulated Blast furnace Slag) concrete has been entwined into the design scheme, with 3.5m floor heights and perimeter blade columns providing additional thermal mass.

A key reason as to why the REHAU TABS system was specified instead of alternative concrete cooling options was the REHAU EVERLOC™ compression sleeve jointing and fittings system. This can be seen on all of REHAU’s pipework solutions, from underfloor to district heating.

This provides a permanent, leak free joint with no O-ring and no pre-preparation of the pipe required.

Contact:

REHAU
Hill Court,
Walford,
Ross on Wye,
Herefordshire,
HR9 5QN

Email address: enquiries@rehau.com
Tel: 01989 72600

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