The building is designed to provide world-class facilities and be a centre of excellence for sports, fitness and related research for the university and surrounding region.

It comprises two sports halls, three studios, a strength and conditioning high-performance gym, a general purpose gym accessible to the public, a sports and exercise therapy space, and personal training and teaching gyms. 

Designed to achieve a Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) rating of ‘Excellent’, the building also complies with Southampton City Council’s strategy on tackling and adapting to climate change.

The project includes a combination of Toshiba’s award-winning three-pipe heat recovery SHRMe and two-pipe SMMSe VRF systems, plus Toshiba Digital Inverter splits and applied AHU-DX combined coil systems. Along with a CIAT Floway DX system, comprising of a compact CIAT AHU twinned with a Toshiba Digital Inverter condensing unit, these provide for the complex heating and cooling requirements of the multiple spaces within the building, ensuring athletes, visitors and staff optimum comfort conditions for, while delivering excellent energy efficiency and low running costs. 

Toshiba’s regional specifications manager, Val Belz, worked closely with mechanical and electrical contractor, Briggs & Forrester Engineering, Northampton, throughout the design and delivery stage to ensure the client’s requirements were met. Requirements included long piping separation capability, low-noise operation, energy efficiency, value-for-money and proven equipment reliability.

Jason Evans, mechanical design manager with Briggs & Forrester Engineering, Northampton, who headed the project, said: “Providing a high quality indoor environment is critical in such a high performance building. In addition, the solution had to meet the high environmental standards required to achieve the target BREEAM rating of Excellent. The Toshiba system specified delivers on all of these, and ensures ongoing running costs are minimised for the client.”

Equipment was installed by Skyline Air Conditioning and supplied by Toshiba distributor Cool Designs. The complex is due to be handed over shortly, and will enter into full use later this year.