Green days

In this issue we feature a variety of innovative schemes on which designers have used natural resources as part of an engineered solution to services design. University College Cork’s stunning new art gallery is a case in point (page 24). It uses groundwater as part of a system that provides heating and cooling for the galleries. On a larger scale, a study by London Underground and South Bank University is under way to assess the possibility of using subterranean river water as a source of free cooling for the system’s platforms and tunnels (project news, page 16).

Equally innovative is the work of Trox and Star Refrigeration on the use of carbon dioxide cooling as a means of removing the large quantities of heat generated by the latest generation of computer equipment (page 46). Not only is this refrigerant better suited to dealing with the high heat loads found in computer cabinets, it will also dispense with the use of manufactured refrigerants, many of which have a high global warming potential.

And it is not only close to home that resources are being conserved as a result of innovation. In Dubai, the designer of a giant district-cooling scheme serving part of the Palm Jumeirah island is using treated sewerage in place of potable water to keep the scheme’s cooling towers topped up (page 36); and engineers working on the world’s tallest building, the Burj Dubai (page 32), are designing a system to collect condensate from the air-conditioning system to irrigate its landscaped surrounds.

But such examples are thin on the ground, to the extent that there is something profligate about the quantity of development under way in Dubai. Unless these schemes are to be branded decadent, engineers need to encourage clients to focus on environmental as well as financial sustainability. It would good for the environment and excellent PR for the city if, as well as the biggest, most luxurious, fastest and tallest, new developments were also the greenest and the most energy efficient.