Cranbrook School Sydney

Providing the Building Management System central to the redevelopment of Cranbrook's senior campus, ControlWorks partnered with ICR Mechanical to deliver intelligent HVAC control and monitoring for the prestigious school's sprawling new facilities, including a state-of-the-art underground aquatic and fitness centre.

Cranbrook is an Anglican independent day and boarding school for boys, from pre-school to Year 12. The esteemed Sydney school's significant redevelopment and renewal of its aging senior campus at Bellevue Hill is the single most ambitious and visionary project to be undertaken in the school's history.

The $125 million dollar redevelopment involved the replacement of buildings, some of which have been in use for more than 70 years. It also included digging up the senior school’s Horden Oval to build the underground aquatic and fitness centre, which features an Olympic-sized swimming pool, along with a 126-space car park. The redevelopment also incorporates a drama and music theatre, multi-level contemporary education building, dining commons, multi-use assembly hall, theatre, indoor basketball courts, and chapel.

 

ControlWorks solution - Building Management System

Cranbrook appointed Richard Crookes Constructions to construct the buildings and ICR Mechanical to manage and install the HVAC systems. ControlWorks worked with ICR Mechanical to engineer and install a building automation system, based on Distech Controls' Niagara N4 Supervisor and Graphics platform. ControlWorks previously provided a similar system for Cranbrook's nearby junior school campus.

The flexible Distech Controls' Niagara N4 Supervisor and Graphics system provides the school with a web-based, graphical user interface. This makes it easy to access real-time HVAC monitoring and control via a web browser, from any computer connected to the school's IT network. The password-protected, easy-to-use interface allows the school's engineering and facilities management staff to operate and manage the HVAC system with minimal reliance on the vendor.

Ventilation

Along with offering energy efficiencies and savings, the system also provides advanced features such as temperature, humidity and CO2 monitoring to ensure classroom air quality and provide adequate ventilation. The system ensures that all indoor areas regularly cycle their air, and can automatically notify teachers of the need to open classroom windows or adjust the air conditioning.

The solution provides natural ventilation to classrooms and the basketball court in Cranbrook's Centenary Building for considerable energy savings. It monitors conditions both inside and out, thanks to an outdoor weather station, and automatically adjusts motorised louvres to ensure optimal indoor conditions.

Condensation

The Olympic swimming pool in Cranbrook's new aquatic and fitness centre is heated through the use of heat pumps, or by gas-fired hot water generators from the main plant.

ControlWorks's solution takes advantage of a specialised pool Air Handling Units to avoid condensation on the pool area windows. Tightly controlling the temperature, air movement and humidity in the pool area, such solutions are more common in public aquatic centres than schools.

An air heat exchanger also delivers energy savings by controlling the air temperature to keep it a steady 2 degrees Celsius above the pool water temperature.

 

Conclusion

The building automation system can report in real-time the temperature conditions in each of the building zones, and offers proactive monitoring and alerts, including via email and SMS.The dynamic and historical trend logging of all critical connected control points enables quick and efficient diagnosis of any issues.

The Niagara system also performs a wide range of essential functions from analytics and master scheduling to database management and integration with other enterprise software applications.

Overall, the customer can effectively manage the buildings without the need for daily intervention by onsite personnel. The buildings are running sustainably to ensure a reduced energy consumption, resulting in lower running costs.