Projects
PROJECT CHALLENGES
An element of difficulty experienced in this development was
related to services co-ordination. In a constantly changing
retail environment the various designs and services needed to
be updated and coordinated before being installed on site.
Another item was the fact that the new mall is constructed
from precast hollow core concrete panels, which means that
vertical penetrations had to be planned for long in advance.
The meticulous coordination process that was followed, led by
the architect, allowed for these challenges to be overcome.
Malcolm Coulson Photography
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UNIQUE PROJECT ELEMENT
What essentially makes the system unique is the sheer size
of the installation and volume of components involved in
the installation.
The applied design allows each shop to have its own A/C
unit, thus allowing for a high level of redundancy throughout
the mall. This is a vast improvement from systems that have
one large centralised A/C unit that serves multiple tenants,
which often have different heat load profiles.
The centralised condenser water plant and ring main
piping system allows for diversity to be maximised and
further improves redundancy. The main cooling tower plant
consists of five cooling towers with dry cooling capacity
to reduce water usage and allow for partial cooling during
domestic water shut-down periods
RACA Journal
“Changing of user habits
generally yields more energy
saving than just having an
overall energy efficient system.”
Malcolm Coulson Photography
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1. The lower level of the new development leading up to the
atrium is a superb structure to stand in the middle of.
2. The primary condenser water pump assemblies.
3. The new mall area has been fitted with various retro
finishes including tinted windows and ceiling décor.
RACA Journal I October 2020
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ENERGY SAVING
To a large extent, per-tenant billing is catered for with this
design – energy consumption can thus be reduced due to
tenant accountability. Changing of user habits generally
yields more energy saving than just having an overall energyefficient
system.
This system provides the user with a system where they can
benefit directly from improving on their energy usage habits.
This system also makes use of individual A/C units, which
allows for certain areas to be switched off if they are not
trading. This then ensures that energy is not wasted on cooling
un-occupied areas.
The HVAC system itself is simple and robust. The system
was designed this way so that it would allow for maximum
flexibility, be easy to operate and easy to maintain.
Taking into account all the variations necessitated by
tenant-extras and tenant-changes, the project was run within
budget. RACA
www.hvacronline.co.za