Regents Crescent, London W1
Regents Crescent is a residential heritage project which involved returning a stunning architectural set piece back to its original residential use.
Regents Crescent is a residential heritage project in central London (W1) which involved returning a stunning architectural set piece back to its original residential use.
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Originally designed in 1820 by John Nash, one of the most celebrated architects of his time, the property comprises a Grade 1 listed Crescent and adjoining properties at 77-81 Portland Place which had been used primarily for commercial purposes. The property has been redeveloped into a luxury residential development including sixty-seven new apartments together with nine garden villas and associated car parking. This landmark project provides best-in-class leisure and amenity with high-quality landscaped gardens.
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The Nash elevational design has major significance for being a part of a single crescent that forms the picturesque backdrop to the park and negotiates the transition from open parkland to the urban boulevard of Portland Place.
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Hilson Moran in Farnborough were appointed to carry out all aspects of the electrical and mechanical design and approached me to provide selections and advice for this Heat Network project. The brief was that heating interface units would cater for the heating and domestic hot water needs of the residencies whilst cooling interface units would deal with the cooling requirements. The energy provided to these units would come from a bank of boilers for heating and hot water generation and via chillers to supply the air conditioning requirements. This central plant would also be needed to heat and cool other areas of the development including a swimming pool and spa.
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Various solutions were discussed, regarding the interface units, and it was decided that the most efficient method of generating domestic hot water would be instantaneously rather than storing hot water within a cylinder which would otherwise use up valuable living space within the apartment. Also, as available space for installation was tight, it was decided to consider a floor standing combined heating and cooling interface unit.
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Selected for the apartments was seventy-six bespoke combined heating and cooling interface units supplied by Elco Heating Solutions to deal with the high load requirements of the apartments, that being up to 20kW for both heating and cooling and up to 150kW for domestic hot water, depending on apartment/villa type and location within the development.
The floor standing units were installed with the best specification SWEP’s brazed heat exchangers so that the heating return temperature back to the boilers would promote condensing within the appliances and so reduce their fuel consumption and hence also harmful emissions produced. This would also lead generally to high heat network efficiency which would cut costs throughout the entire development.
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To power the heat network and surrounding amenities four Elco Trigon XXL condensing boilers were selected together with appropriate thermal stores to deal with peak load requirements etc. These were selected due to the output achievable per m2 of floor area, very high efficiency, ultra-low NOx emissions and corrosion resistant stainless steel construction.
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The main contractors for the project were Ark Mechanical and Electrical, which specialises in providing a complete M&E solution for large complex residential projects. Commenting on the installation, Titus Hall, mechanical Project Manager at Ark M&E said: “The entire installation process of all the equipment was very simple and straightforward, especially for a project