When purchased in early 2007, the building at 115 Batman Street, West Melbourne was a derelict ex-machine shop/factory building. As the building owner, NDY embarked on a redevelopment of the building to provide accommodation for the NDY Victorian team and Melbourne based corporate staff. Key components of the brief were to provide:
- A quality working environment for NDY staff
- A showcase for building services for display to our clients and to assist the learning experience of our staff
- Implementation of sustainable engineering practices with particular emphasis on energy and water conservation, whilst simultaneously enhancing the quality of the occupied space.
The finished project provides a light-filled vibrant work space that has been very well received by staff. Key features incorporated to ensure minimum energy consumption and optimum indoor environments include:
- Retention of existing external brick walls to provide high thermal inertia
- High performance double glazing
- High performance insulation to underside of ground floor, new facade above existing and new roof
- Passive chilled beam air conditioning system to ground, first and second floors
- VAV system with economy cycle to Level 3
- Increased fresh air supply to all levels. On the ground, first and second floors fresh air is supplied at 2 litres/m², which is twice the minimum code requirement
- Wetted pad heat rejection system for chiller to optimise energy consumption, minimise water consumption and eliminate legionella risk
- High efficiency gas fired boiler
- Hot water radiators to provide optimum control of heating on ground, first and second floors
- Comprehensive BMCS to facilitate fine tuning and optimisation of energy consumption
- High efficiency luminaries
- Comprehensive lighting control system to ensure lights are off when areas are unoccupied
- Water storage tank under basement slab to capture stormwater and fire test water for re-use in toilet cisterns and for air conditioning system wetted pad condenser
- High efficiency low water consumption fittings throughout
- Solar heated domestic hot water system.
The building achieved a 5 Star Green Star v2 rating for Design and As Built, a 5 Star Green Star v1.1 rating for Interiors, and was also certified via participation in the Green Star Performance Pilot process. The performance of the air conditioning systems was well proven from the outset, when in early February 2009 the systems maintained internal design conditions through three consecutive days of ambient temperatures in the mid 40s.
