Balfour Beatty Engineering Services (BBES) has completed the sustainable mechanical and electrical (M&E) contract for a new £24m community sports hub near Glasgow, part of Renfrewshire Council's £103m investment in local facilities.
Designed by Cre8 Architecture and built by BAM Construction, Linwood Community Sports Hub will make a major contribution to the regeneration of the area, combining community spaces, an adult learning disability centre and sport facilities including three pool areas, a sports hall, squash courts, a fitness suite and dance studios.
In line with sportscotland’s aim to create high quality, sustainable leisure facilities, BBES has delivered a building services solution that includes a range of environmentally friendly components and off-site manufacturing. This included a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) unit, underfloor heating, mechanical and natural ventilation systems, water leak detection, energy monitoring, low energy lighting controls and led lighting.
The CHP unit will help to minimise the building’s fuel based energy use and improve environmental performance. The system will make use of the heat created through the generation of electrical and mechanical power which would otherwise be wasted. This allows the facility’s heat requirements to be met without the need for fuel based heating systems. The energy monitoring allows the customer to see their usage of gas, water and electricity and helps minimise their consumption, lowering the overall life costs of the building.
The project also included the integration of occupancy controlled domestic water services to toilets and changing areas. This energy saving system results in the water services switching off automatically to areas when the lights go off. An intelligent BMS system was also installed to allow the control and monitoring of the full site from the Facilities Management office.
Utilising off-site manufacture, BBES delivered a fully-serviced plant room which was prefabricated at the company’s Modular Systems + facility in Wednesbury, West Midlands. Off-site factory controlled assembly helps to reduce hours on site and offers a much safer approach to construction. It also helps to significantly reduce waste whilst maximising quality control.
“For this highly serviced building, BBES was faced with the challenge of integrating the numerous systems to create a sustainable building services solution”, commented BBES Regional Director Derek Sanders. “In addition, the team faced the challenge of installing many of the systems into incredibly tight ceiling spaces, some of which also contained the flumes for one of the swimming pools.”
Through the company’s ‘perfect landings’ approach to handover, BBES has also agreed aftercare requirements to help ensure the employees of Linwood Community Sports Hub fully understand how to manage and make best use of the facilities building services, ensuring the building is sustainable in design, construction and long term operation.
Linwood Community Sports Hub is now open and provides a permanent recreational facility for the town and surrounding area, as well as demonstrating BBES’ ability to supply and install complex M&E schemes safely and sustainably.