Asia Square Tower
IMI ensures optimal indoor climate for Singapore’s Asia square tower.
The Project
When MGPA wanted to increase HVAC efficiency systems to address stringent indoor climate and temperature requirements for the development’s Tower 1, they set out to find a partner with the know-how and capability to enable precise temperature control with optimized efficiency. As such, IMI proved to be the partner with the perfect solution.
The Asia Square Tower is a £633 million twin-tower, mixed-use development at Marina Bay, Singapore, one of the key financial centres in the region. It comprises a 305-room five-star Westin Singapore Marina Bay Hotel on the 32nd to 46th levels, 190,000m2 of Grade A office space and 5,600m2 of retail space.
The Hydronic Challenge
With many mixed-use development buildings, it is essential that care is taken to balance out what can be differing indoor climate requirements between the hotel, retail and office spaces of the building while delivering excellent energy efficiency. At the same time, Singapore’s equatorial marine climate meant that the comfort of the interior environment for residents, visitors and building employees was highly important.
The Solution
A meeting between IMI and consulting engineers AECOM and Meinhardt provided the company with an in-depth understanding of the customers’ indoor climate and temperature objectives for the 43-storey Tower-1.
Following this meeting, it was agreed that the establishment of efficient hydronic balancing of the system was essential. However, it was clear IMI faced some interesting challenges.
One of these concerned the supply of chilled water from a District Cooling plant that led to special technical requirements for maintaining the differential temperature (ΔT), otherwise the supplier may face heavy fines from the municipality. Another was a secondary pump head of 12 metres, an almost unheard of challenge. The first step in reaching the optimal solution was to review the existing system.
IMI began with a thorough analysis, measuring differential pressure, flow and temperature inside the chilled water system. IMI’ proven TA Select 4 hydronic calculation software was then used for hydronic calculation and component selection for a complete system solution in order to minimise energy use and provide accurate temperature control at individual room level.
Through a combination of high performance STAF and STAD balancing valves, STAP and DA516 differential pressure controllers, as well as pressurisation maintenance systems Compresso and Pleno, IMI provided the ideal solution which delivered outstanding efficiency and increased indoor climate comfort.
Asia Square has achieved both the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design Core & Shell (LEED-CS) Platinum certification by the US Green Building Council and Green Mark Platinum Award by the Building and Construction Authority of Singapore, making it one of Asia’s greenest buildings.
With the indoor climate and temperature requirements of Tower 1 successfully met, hydronic distribution systems from IMI have also been specified for the development’s 46 storey Tower 2, which, to be completed in 2013, boasts a Westin hotel, 72,465m2 of Grade A office space and 3,717m2 of retail and F&B space.