State of the art Business School for Brunel University

Eastern Gateway

Berkeley Environmental Services, a part of the Four Seasons Group are proud to have worked on Brunel University’s new flagship Eastern Gateway building, which will create a new home for the Business and Law School, Main Reception, Beldam Art Gallery and a 400 seat Lecture Theatre.

Due to open in Spring 2012, this £30m building has state of the art facilities. 7000m2 over four floors, with 4000m2 of custom designed space to cater for, and house the school’s faculty, students and leading edge research activities.

The Trend building management system consists of a mixture of Trend IQ3 and IQL series controllers all connected to the site wide infrastructure to provide a comfortable building environment whilst focusing on energy savings.

Heating is provided by a Biomass boiler system backed up by conventional gas boilers serving constant temperature, compensated variable temperature, underfloor heating and DHWS systems to the building services.

Control of internal offices and open areas is provided by local ‘airside fan coil units’ whist perimeter areas utilise automatic window control to provide natural ventilation. The lecture theatre comprises both natural and mechanical ventilation systems, with the natural ventilation taking priority to maintain the desired temperature control. Constant monitoring and control of Co2 levels by both the natural and mechanical systems provide an ideal environment to work in.

Dedicated programmed software routines for Variable Pre-Heat, Pre-Cool and Night Free Cooling periods provide additional means to conserve energy during initial building start-up whilst maintaining optimum control of the buildings environment for its occupants.

Full monitoring of the buildings energy consumption is achieved by the use of system wide electrical meters connected via Trend EMIC interfaces. This information is fed directly into the Estates Trend 963 supervisor system for analysis and historical reference.

These features, along with others including a BMS controlled rainwater harvesting system, and the general design of the building have helped it to achieve the desired BREEAM ‘excellent’ rating whilst allowing for a striking design which will stand as the new entrance to Brunel University.