The Scalpel

52 Lime Street, known as The Scalpel, is a striking 190 metre office tower in the heart of the City in London. It provides office accommodation for over 35 office floors including shops, bars and restaurants.

Its distinctive angular shape made this a unique project. We used our technical expertise to design a bespoke ventilation solution, sympathetic to the structure of the building, an unusual footprint which narrowed in size.

A total of one thousand LDB20/8 linear diffusers, complete with coordinating subframes and insulated plenums, were chosen for the undertaking of the job. These high-induction diffusers, selected to minimize their visual presence, effectively ensured the precise distribution of air across all 35 levels of the building.

Energy efficient reactive variable volume control dampers, VREactive were fitted to ensure the variable flow rate controller met the specific demands of each floor while maintaining low levels of noise. Carefully selected for its technical ability, the VREactice, measures the differential pressure by two cup-shaped elements mounted in the damper blade area. Placing the damper blade in the throttle position creates a jet effect, which is concentrated with reduced flow rates and higher throttle settings. This results in increased air speeds at the measuring point even with lower duct air speeds allowing for relatively high and very precisely measurable differential pressures.

With this measuring principle, the highest control accuracy of all known systems is achieved even with very low air speeds.

The final outcome was a high-performance ventilation system that not only provided optimal thermal comfort but also harmoniously integrated with the elegant structure of the building, through meticulous design considerations.