Architectural Assistant Mirabell Schmidt takes a seat on the University of Westminster’s crit panel

For example, low density means that in order to harness enough energy to power the UK, we would need to build a solar farm of an impossibly large size.

For example, a 10-storey office building with an average floor to floor height of 4m would require a stack 10m tall (nearly 3 storeys.)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.chillers, heat pumps, generators, UPS) and distribution which can be difficult to install due to lack of space.

Also, existing office utility plant may simply be too old, inefficient, or unreliable for lab use, making upgrades necessary..

While purified water can be generated locally, drainage for lab sinks and equipment can be challenging due to a lack of risers in a standard office and difficulties achieving falls, so an overhead pumped system may be necessary.The first assets may be delivered quite traditionally, but sequential assets can be increasingly industrialised in their delivery:.

Starting to engage key suppliers in the provision of standardised equipment to give certainty of pipeline to the supplier, and certainty of cost and availability to the client.Prefabricating sections or ‘lower order Chips’ (the standardisation process means the lower order Chips are often designed in a way that means they can be prefabricated e.g.

an MEP cassette).Culminating in the development or adoption of a platform solution to the reference design..