Chemistry Department, University of Warwick

Redevelopment over two phases of the Chemistry Department Undergraduate Laboratories; Working closely with University of Warwick Estates, CBG designed complex M&E services to provide undergraduate teaching laboratories and research facilities for students.

The installation comprised of a specialist teaching laboratory which included 42 low-face velocity (0.35m/s) VAV fumehoods (Waldner, Secuflow) and fully serviced furniture. Serious design challenges included a limited services envelope to house fumehood extract, make-up air, data, power, gasses etc. Containment in low-face velocity fumehoods can easily be perturbed by turbulence, the design had to allow delivery of a controlled variable amount of air to balance the system and maintain a 5 Pascal pressure differential without creating turbulence to ensure that containment was robust and compliant with BS EN 14175. Implementation was also problematic due to the necessity of maintaining services to a second Teaching Laboratory which shared plant.

The scheme included heat recovery and intelligent lighting with daylight dimming and absence detection. The project has delivered energy savings of about average 75% per annum and a predicted carbon reduction of 370 tonnes/co2/annum.