76HEATING, VENTILATION & SERVICESWWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK ADF NOVEMBER 2019
T
he Worlds 10thTallest Skyscraper at
the time of construction featuring
AET Flexible Space Underfloor Air
Conditioning is located in Hong Kong’s
Central Business District and standing at
352m high offers panoramic views of Victoria
Harbour. This 80 storey building and
prominent landmark was the first building in
Hong Kong to adopt underfloor air
conditioning throughout and recently gained
renewed attention having been sold for the
world record price for an office building of
$US 5.2 Billion (37000$/sqm) attracting
rents in excess of £100 per sq foot.
The Column free design offers floor plates
of 26000sq ft and permits up to 12 separate
tenancies per floor. Each tenancy is provided
with its own temperature controlled zone and
permits easy out of hours operation. In many
cases corporations have taken complete floors
and in some cases two or three floors.
The modular design included knock outsections in the floor structure to permit
internal staircases to be added if desired for
such corporations.
Utilising a raised access floor void as a
plenum to deliver conditioned air to the work
spaces over 10 per cent height saving was
achieved when compared with ceiling based
Fan Coils or VAV. The Developer Cheung
Kong’s FM Company Citybase reported a
reduction in energy consumption in the
region of 20 per cent when compared with
similar buildings, within their portfolio,
utilising Fan Coils in Hong Kong.
AET Flexible Space assisted in the initial
design and followed through with
construction support and a full maintenance
agreement to look after the tenants and the
6500 Fantile™ units installed over 59 floors
of speculative office accommodation. As a
direct result of reducing the building height
by 10 per cent, 35m in height was saved
offering a saving in cost of Curtain Walling
alone of approximately $US 7 million.
Tenants find the system to be extremely
adaptable both when meeting space layout
changes and personal comfort. Fantiles can be
relocated in a matter of minutes to suit the
layouts without impacting on the ceiling
installation. Commenting on this Anthony
Poon of Citybase said that there is no doubt
that the Flexible Space System is the most cost
effective AC system over time, that he has
worked with, when it comes to
reconfiguration and upgrade.
The building has gained Class 1
Certification for Indoor Air Quality
(IAQ) and won the Green Building of the
Year award.
TAX BENEFIT for UK: A little known but
highly attractive feature is that the raised
floor, when used as a floor plenum, along
with all the air conditioning system attracts
capital allowances. With the current
Government Investment Allowances of 100
per cent write off up to £1 million of
equipment, in the first year, Developers can
gain a dramatic cost advantage by adopting
Underfloor Airconditioning compared to
ceiling based systems in addition to the
capital allowance granted for the ceiling
plenum used for the return air.01342 310400
http://www.flexiblespace.comTHE CENTER – The World’s most Expensive
Of(ce Building
PROJECT DETAILSLocation:Hong Kong
Total Area:140,000 sq m
Air Conditioning System:AET
Flexible Space System
Under)oor supply air, high level
return air
Building Type:New build
Client:Cheung Kong Holdings
Architect:Dennis Lau and Ng
Chun Man
Engineer:ACEUPLOADED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws