Our M&E engineers work alongside architects and other disciplines in highly collaborative project teams, from the earliest stages and through projects, meaning that M&E building services are never an afterthought or an add-on.
It is often possible to mitigate some of this through good design, such as lowering ceilings in corridors to accommodate main ductwork runs or positioning lower height rooms close to risers.Ground floor units and older office buildings may also have larger floor-to-floor heights, and there can even be opportunities to increase headroom by removing raised-access floors (though this will impact floor thresholds.)
A deeper ceiling void may also introduce the need for sprinklers or fire detection systems.. 3.Structural frames in existing office buildings may be unable to support higher lab loads or vibration sensitive equipment..Some automated and larger-scale lab equipment can be particularly heavy, and even high densities of smaller equipment or storage items can result in relatively high loads when compared to a standard office fit-out.
A typical office may have a live load capacity of around 3-4kN/m.2. , while a lab will often require 4-5kN/m.
2. , with some specialised equipment reaching over 20kN/m.
Labs will also require additional suspended services and potentially new HVAC or utility plant in the refurbished office space or on the roof, meaning a wider building assessment is necessary.There are a few ways to challenge this, including CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) modelling and the use of alternative discharge stacks (e.g.
strobic fans), which may be necessary for some office to lab conversions.Of course, local standards elsewhere will vary.. 5.
Existing office buildings may struggle to accommodate new laboratory utility plant and distribution.. A typical lab will consume two to five times as much energy as an office and may also have additional back-up power requirements.This means more power and cooling, and therefore more plant (e.g.