AET Flexible Space have just completed a major upgrade of the underfloor air conditioning system at a historic building located in the Clerkenwell area of London, The Bond Works building at 77-79 Farringdon Road.
The building was originally constructed in 1882 as the London premises of Lincolnshire based engineering firm, Marshall & Sons, and previously underwent a full redevelopment in 2007 by a group of private investors. The eight storey building is located on a prominent corner position, with floor to ceiling glazing ensuring that each floor benefits from optimum natural light. The exposed brick and iron work grants a contemporary warehouse style finish to the six extensively refurbished floors. Underfloor air conditioning was specified and installed for the height restricted building in 2007, along with other energy saving design features such as night time ice storage. As part of the recent works, AET Flexible Space were successful in their bid to upgrade the existing downflow unit controls and replace all fan terminals on the six refurbished floors with AET Fantiles.
With underfloor air conditioning systems, fully conditioned air is fed into the plenum by zonal downflow units (CAM), which is then supplied into the workspace via fan terminal units (Fantile). The Fantile units feature integrated controllers where users can personally adjust fan speed and temperature to suit their own comfort. Systems can be configured with underfloor or high level return and can easily integrate with passive or other ventilation systems. The existing system at Farringdon Road is the equivalent to an AET CAM-V system, supplying conditioned air via the floor plenum and receiving spent, used air back at high level for re-conditioning. Working for Twenty1 Construction and new building owners, NFU Mutual, AET engineers upgraded the existing units with AET control boards, associated cabling, new actuators and filters. 140 TU4-AC Fantiles were supplied for the six floors of speculative Cat-A accommodation with capacity to add additional terminals for tenant fit-out. The final result is spectacular, contemporary “cutting edge meets heritage” workspace, blending historic features with new modern services in the heart of Clerkenwell business district.
