Dunham Bush has supplied over 140 Lynx fan coils to the new Mountbatten Building at the University of Southampton. The units were selected by principal consulting engineers CH2M Hill for their high performance and compact, discreet design. The main design and build contractor is Bovis Lend Lease.
The 4-storey Mountbatten Building, designed by architects Jestico + Whiles, houses the University’s nanotechnology research facilities and comprises a large clean room on Level 1, with laboratories, meeting rooms and offices on Level 2, and two further floors of open plan and cellular office accommodation at Levels 3 and 4. Installed by contractors Merit Merrell Technology, the Lynx 4-pipe fan coils are located in the laboratories and meeting rooms, as well as selected offices.
“There are no false ceilings in the laboratories so the fan coils are mounted on the underside of the slab,” explained Stephen Wright of CH2M Hill. “The compact design of the Lynx units enabled us to make their presence as discreet as possible, which was aided by the low noise characteristics of the units.”
Heating requirements for the laboratories are minimal, because of internal heat gains, so the fan coils provide comfort cooling most of the time. Chilled water is supplied from an absorption chiller, which receives heat from the University’s district heating scheme, supplemented when necessary by a screw compressor chiller. Additional cooling is provided by fresh air introduced at 8ºC, which is recirculated by the fan coils.
