Castle Street Student Accommodation

This mixed-use project involved the creation of an eleven-story building comprising 180 student accommodation rooms. Alongside the student accommodation, associated ancillary uses for the students include a pharmacy, doctors’ surgery, cycle storage for 153 cycles, and car parking facilities for sixteen visitors.

Elementa Consulting’s involvement in this project consisted of all mechanical, electrical, public health design, and sustainable strategies, which included the energy strategy, utilities, and sustainability planning (including external lighting assessment).

The student accommodation rooms for this scheme were fully pod/modular constructed, with the added benefit of a reduced program time, reduced cost, and improved health and safety.

The scheme was developed with CHP to sustainably maintain the use of electric heating within the student rooms. This was integrated with a push switch timer for heating operation, which within this well-insulated building means it is rarely used. To overcome overheating due to acoustic issues on the dual carriageway façade, we developed a simple push switch boost ventilation design via dynamic simulation. The rooms utilized a very economical up size of the standard bathroom/kitchen ventilation unit in conjunction with discrete acoustic vents that doubled as natural trickle ventilation.