A Focus On The Occupant

When looking to convince a client that a building and engineering solution will work and will be ultimately beneficial for their project, demonstrating that you have previous experience in that kind of work is a good place to start. Showing it off in your own office is even better.

That is precisely what global engineering giant Aurecon decided to do. Working in collaboration with developers Lend Lease on a new Melbourne home in Docklands, the company has aimed to deliver staff a better working environment through the implementation of innovation, air quality, energy efficiency and sustainability technology.

It is Aurecon’s interpretation of the ‘Workplace of the Future’ as highlighted in the recent article by Romilly Madew, chief executive of the Green Building Council of Australia.

Aurecon’s 700 Melbourne-based staff, all of whom were part of a consultation process during the design, will work across five interconnected floors in the ‘smart’, green building. The energy targets for the building are 4.5 star NABERS for the base building and 5 star NABERS Energy for the tenancy. This means the buiding’s performance will be approximately 25 per cent better than typical market practice and 40 per cent better than Aurecon’s previous head office.

One thing the engineer won’t compromise on though is the internal environment and occupant comfort, as Aurecon technical director Peter Mathieson explains.

“We often get asked why we didn’t go for 6 stars,” he says. “When considering sustainability for the development we have considered it in its true sense; that is to consider the social, economic and environmental impacts. If we had aimed for 6 star we would not have had the underfloor air conditioning, the openable windows or the terrace. Sure there would be a marginal improvement in environmental outcomes but we didn’t feel it would deliver the holistic value we were after.”

“A sustainable building is about more than energy reduction,” he says. “It is about creating a building that works for the long-term and is flexible and adaptable. We wanted to create an environment that reduced energy usage but was also enjoyable to be in. That is why after forthright discussions with the developer, occupant-focused elements,We offers several ways of providing hands free access to car parks to authorised vehicles. from a roof terrace down to windows that can be independently opened so staff can control their own environment, were seen as more important.”

It is these smaller elements, ‘the layers’ as Mathieson calls them, which really make a difference. Aurecon has not gone for big-ticket, expensive items such as co-generation or photovoltaics on the roof, although such measures were discussed, focusing instead on simple low or no-cost solutions, which have maximum benefit for the occupants.

The building’s green features include an underfloor air conditioning system that provides outdoor air ventilation at twice the code requirement.Buy today and get your delivery for £25 on a range of ceramic tile for your home. With this system, each person in the office has a floor grille located at their desk with which they can control their airflow and local climate and temperature control. As a “once-past-the-face” system, the mixing of pollutants from people, printing, kitchens and furniture that occurs is traditional systems is eliminated and indoor air quality is improved. The high supply air temperatures enable a significant decrease in energy consumption where economy cycle can be used for a significant percentage of the year. At these higher temperatures, chiller efficiency is also improved and further decreased energy.All our plastic moulds are vacuum formed using food safe plastic.

The building fa?ades also reduce energy consumption. The building has grey,Our aim is to supply air purifier which will best perform to the customer's individual requirements. double glazed low-e windows that trap heat on the surface and prevent it from radiating into the office and will also help to eliminate glare. The solar control glazing also means that despite the low amount of solar heat transmitted into the building there is an increase in natural light when compared to a more traditional system, giving the office an open and bright feel. The office fitout design has also ensured that at least 60 per cent of work stations are located close to the fa?ade and achieve a daylight factor above 2.We mainly supply professional craftspeople with wholesale turquoise beads from china.5 per cent to further optimise this design aspect.

Significant optimisation has gone into the building’s control systems to ensure energy is reduced. Thermal modelling has been undertaken to optimise the temperature set-points and both the air and water systems utilise variable speed drives with pressure re-set to decrease energy consumption.

Other intriguing initiatives include a fire engineered solution that allowed the installation of an open contiguous interconnecting stair through the height of the tenancy over five floors, which would be otherwise not allowed under the deemed to satisfy code obligations and an integrated security access and lift call system where the access card calls the lift and then predicts the destination floor based on fuzzy learning logic from previous travel history.

“Anyone can save energy but if it is at the expense of occupant comfort it defeats the object,” says Aurecon senior mechanical and ESD engineer Anthony Calderone. “We conducted a survey of staff with regards the internal environment of our old building and there were plenty of complaints. We are committed with this new building to take on board their input and will conduct a post occupancy staff survey that aims to measure the impact that the new environment has on both health and productivity. We will then take this learning and work with the intuitive system we have designed to adapt it as necessary and see how far we can take it.”

It will be interesting to see the results of the staff survey when they are released. What is certain is that commercially it works with news that developer Lend Lease has already managed to sell the building on to an international investor.

I’m resisting the urge only because I’d have zero use for it. Which probably means I’ll be getting one for my birthday just to play with it.

If this scheme works, you’ll see a lot of these. They’ve nano-miniaturized a working PC down to the size of a flash drive, 3 inches by a half inch. And with some help, it works.

We may eventually be calling this genre a “stick PC” for its similarity to a stick drive.

Plug it into a cellphone 5-amp wall charger and it boots up (no room for an on/off switch). Plug a monitor into the USB port and add a $25 wireless keyboard with touchpad to its network. And you’re computing.

Granted, this thing is no speed demon. It runs off a 1.5 GHz processor with 1 gig of RAM. It will show movies and videos but with some jerky moments as the processor catches up. It plays simple graphic games such as “Angry Birds” and seems fine for messaging and e-mail.

You’ll need an external hard drive for off-network work, or spend $25 extra for a model with 8 gigs of internal storage.

For your $75, you have a remarkable little system. It’s hampered by no battery and slow everything on the motherboard. Still, the wireless is modern, and that’s the most important part. You’ll be using that the most.

My concern is it gets pretty hot in that little plastic jacket. Heat degrades and eventually kills magnetic chips. Running a little desk fan on it should help. New versions are coming with better ventilation.

Coming up with a use is another thing. The operating system is Android, Google’s cellphone OS. This is a plus. You might be able to run some apps.

Your scheme would be to use as much cloud-based programming as possible, such as Google’s storage, document, gmail, mapping, etc. All your data would be stored on their server, and you could get away with no local hard drive.

Another app could convert your TV into Internet ready. It could act as a TV box between your set and Internet streaming content providers. Users say it does the job streaming Google and Pandora music. It comes with an HDMI cable to attach to the TV.