The multi-use space will host launches, special exhibitions and demonstrations and will also be available for lectures, conferences and other events for local organisations and professional bodies. The centre is aimed to attract local professionals and clients as well the general public. The maximum number of occupants and visitors that you should apply in your specific coursework for the office and multi-use space is set out in the individual briefing spreadsheet issued along with this brief.

It is intended to maintain conditions in the building to provide a healthy and comfortable environment for the staff and also maximise the attraction of the multi-use space, but it is up to you to advise what would be reasonable internal design conditions.

A simplified model of the building ‘geometry’ is developed by a graduate engineer in the design team in IES software. The Client is keen that the building fabric U values are at least 20% better than the current regulatory limits for new buildings (using England regulations as a standard). The design target for the air permeability of the building envelope has also been set as 5 m³/ (h.m²) @ 50 Pa. The external envelope will comprise brick/block insulated walls with reinforced concrete and concrete decking for ground floor and roof designed to meet these standards.  The client wants an outline of the environmental servicing for the building that would be needed to ensure a good quality internal environment to satisfy its specific global location and to meet the needs of visitors and employees who will be representative of the wider public.

The multi-use space is an area that can be used to provide presentations (such as lectures with PowerPoint or even music recitals) for people seated at individual chairs or for business exhibitions. The presentations will typically last no longer than 90 minutes. The environmental conditions in this area should be flexible so that it can suit the potential range of uses.

Site locations

The client aims to develop design concepts for several locations in the UK and Channel Islands. For your specific coursework, refer to the individual briefing spreadsheet.

Coursework requirement

In order to establish the feasibility of the design and to carry the work through to a further stage, the client is sensibly seeking your advice and co-operation at this early stage in the design as you are acting as the engineering systems professional.

It is very important that you evidence (with clear referencing) that all your decisions are based on your research. It is, for example, not appropriate to base design parameters on those offered by software tools (such as IES VE) unless you have corroborating evidence from original sources (such as CIBSE or ASHRAE). You must provide justification as to why you have made the various decisions – it is not adequate to simply rely on personal experience or guesswork.

Any systems/solutions that are finally chosen should require minimal attendance and maintenance and should clearly have regard to total life impact (although full life-cycle calculations are not part of this coursework).

The following requirements are not necessarily sequential and may be recursive:

1.  Having read the brief carefully, you must prepare a simple work plan and monitor

progress from the beginning. At the completion of the project, compare how long work actually took compared with initial expectations in work plan. The work plan must be  included with your submitted work and will form part of the assessment – it is

YOUR tool to evidence and reflect on your progress through the project.

2.  Produce a tabulated performance specification for the office areas and multi-use

space. This should include the parameters that are needed to define the internal environment for the purposes of building services systems analysis and design. You will not necessarily make further use of all of this information in this project, but it may be required for later use (such as by a lighting specialist or specialist acoustician).

3.  Produce psychrometric sketch(es) of the internal design conditions in the multi-use

space together with a commentary why that range is suitable for this particular space, and the external design conditions.

4.  Develop the simple model of the building using a dynamic simulation tool for thermal analysis such as IES VE. This includes defining the building fabric in accordance with the client requirements and applying appropriate and reasonable internal and external seasonal design conditions.

All site locations have readily available sources of weather data that can be used with the software.

5.  Assess and communicate the design heating load and cooling load for the office areas and multi-use space. You should compare your calculated loads against appropriate ‘benchmarks’ and explore (and explain) any significant differences.

6.  Provide an executive comparison of the types of active environmental systems (a table or matrix would be great way to show this) that may be used to maintain appropriate conditions in the office areas. These systems MUST be relevant to this specific building and not be a generic comparison.

7.  Assess and communicate the projected energy performance of the office areas by

applying one of the active environmental systems suggested above using a dynamic simulation tool such as IES VE. Select and justify the input data required to define the system in your model. Compare your calculated energy performance against the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge target for offices. Investigate and evaluate the effect of three key measures that could be considered in the next stage of design to improve the energy performance of the building. In addition to operational performance, the Client is also keen to have an estimation of the embodied carbon of your selected system

(upfront embodied carbon at product stage).

8.  The Client would like to have an all-air system, separate from the environmental

system you specify for the office areas, dedicated to the multi-use space that will have high occupant density during special events for the business. Produce a sketch design of a ducted ‘all air’ system with identification of suitable component parts and approximate sizes for a system to serve the multi-use space.

Selective manufacturers’ data should be included that is specifically related to the systems that you propose. This should clearly identify any ideas or mechanisms that are being used to reduce energy consumption and identify what design cooling and heating loads would be required.

Psychrometric sketch(es) should be provided to indicate the peak/full load system operation as well as a part load.

The method of supplying and extracting air from the room should be clearly explained and shown on a sketch.

There should be a simple schematic drawing that shows the whole system indicating approximate physical sizes of equipment.

There should also be a sketch indicating a reasonable position of the mechanical services plant with some explanation of why you have located it in that position.

9.  Provide a justified recommendation for the lighting types/schemes that could be

adopted in the multi-use space. The client is particularly keen that you should evidence that you are up to date with lighting technology and that you are able to properly consider the requirements of both the events such as exhibitions and the visitors. You are not expected to size the lighting scheme.

10.Outline the measures you would recommend for noise control from the ‘all air’ system you have designed for the multi-use space.

11. Produce a concise report (see details later in this brief) containing all the data from the above sections for submission as a single PDF file (of the same content) through the Moodle system.

The coursework is intended as both a teaching and learning tool. You should learn from the exercise of actually doing the coursework, as stated in the coursework aims. Therefore , an extremely important part of the coursework is a critical self-appraisal of the work done and  lessons learnt. In hindsight you may wish you had allocated your time differently to the various aspects of the coursework; there may be areas where you wish to do further study; you may find that on further development the various solutions that you selected may not be the most appropriate for the spaces. In any or all of these cases, you will have learnt valuable lessons that you can apply to future work. In most cases, you should NOT redo work – if you have taken a wrong turn or are unsure which way to go please speak to your tutor.

Of particular value are the lessons to be learnt on project management - planning and managing your use of time and effort on the coursework effectively and efficiently.

Coursework Report

Produce a concise report containing all the data from the above sections for submission as a single PDF file submitted through the Moodle system.

The report should be considered as a distillation of all your work – it is your opportunity to sell your work in a very concise way.

For the style of your coursework, it is suggested that you use the following guidelines but remember that it must be concise and focussed on this coursework – you have a maximum of 3000 words, PLUS mandatory UCL coursework cover sheets, table of contents and any necessary appendix. Word counts include body text (from the title of the introduction to before the references section) and the body-text part of your references (e.g. name, year). Table of contents, any list of figures and tables, references, appendices, footnotes, endnotes, diagrams and captions are excluded. The work must be legible, coherent and readable – if English is not your first language, you may want to find an English writing/speaking friend who will read through the work before you make final changes before submission.

You are also allowed to use GenAI tools such as Microsoft Copilot to support your writing in a limited manner (e.g., as a proofreader or to review academic tone) . Please note that this coursework submission falls into GenAI Category 2 Assessment, meaning students are permitted to use GenAI tools in a limited, critical and responsible way. The student should still be the author of their own work – in other words, GenAI should be limited to supporting and assisting the student in completing the assessment and should not be completing the assessment (entirely or only in part) on the student’s behalf. Any use of AI tools and the purpose MUST explicitly be declared in the report.

The contents should include in some form:

a) Contents list

b) Brief focussed introduction – specifically introduce THIS work and do NOT include general discussions on such things as climate change, legislation, etc.

This MUST include the location as personally allocated to you by the client.

c) Content that communicates the core aspects of the coursework requirement as reflected in the marking scheme. This MUST be divided into the seven sections as identified in the first seven parts of the marking scheme. Each section does not need to start on a new page but should use a clear heading.

• Performance spec for the office areas and multi-use space and psychrometric sketches for the multi-use space indicating the internal and external design conditions together with a written justification of those chosen conditions ,

• Analysis of the IES model reporting basic heating and cooling design loads at full load,

• Concise summary of potential environmental systems for the office areas,

• Concise summary of energy performance assessment of the office areas with one of  the active environmental systems suggested, along with the outline and justification of the recommended measures to improve the energy performance of the office , and an estimation of the embodied carbon of the system ,

• System outline design and air distribution method for specific location including system psychrometry for the multi-use space,

• Justified recommendation of the lighting scheme in the multi-use space,

• An outline of the measures recommended for noise control from the ‘all-air’ system designed for the multi-use space.

d) Brief conclusion - critical review of the work undertaken, suggestions for further work, etc.

e) Full set of references (and if appropriate a bibliography) preferably using the Harvard System,

f)  Work plan, drawings, tables, diagrams, calculations, etc. should preferably be included where relevant in the text or selectively included in the appendices. In either case, they should be numbered and specifically referred to in the text. The appendices are to only provide essential supporting evidence.

g) Provide the word and page count on the cover page.

Tutor support

We are available through email and will try to respond as swiftly as possible (see page one for contact details.)

To ensure that you are moving forward in the right direction there will be tutorial sessions on Mondays to provide you with the software skills for building performance analysis required for the coursework and also to answer any specific questions you may have about the coursework.

You can also book one-to-one or small group tutorials with Dashamir for specific queries related to this coursework. You should send your request for a tutorial session to him in advance by email and await confirmation.

Assessment

The overall assessment of the coursework will be based on your submitted final report. You are advised to keep a design file comprising all the work put in on this coursework and have this available when in discussion with your tutor.

You are encouraged to meet and discuss general aspects of the coursework with other students. However, it is vital that each submitted coursework is evidence of an individual’s effort in analysing, modelling, evaluating, developing and communicating the chosen solutions.

Assessment Schedule

In the assessment, marks will be awarded for the following, in the proportion shown below.

Total mark and classification of grades will be in keeping with marking for MSc programme.