Wellington Indoor Sports Centre

The Challenge

This very large (10,500m²) facility houses 12-15 indoor netball, basketball, and volleyball courts. The building offices were originally designed using Mitsubishi Electric split systems. However, as the project increased in size the system needed to be adjusted to match.

The site itself is positioned near Evan’s Bay and Wellington Airport, exposing it to salty air, high winds and jet fuel. Factors that needed to be taken into consideration.

The Solution

The main mechanical consultant was eCubed Building Workshop on behalf of Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) Consulting, who originally designed this project using Mitsubishi Electric split systems. As the project increased in size, the logical decision was to change the design to a Mitsubishi Electric two-pipe simultaneous heat recovery VRF system. This was mainly due to the varied usage and orientation of the offices, which offered heat recovery potential between the spaces, resulting in lower energy usage.

Fresh air is also introduced to these spaces via Mitsubishi Electric LGH-RX5 Lossnay units. This offers a balanced air solution as the incoming, fresh air is preheated via the outgoing warm, stale air. This eliminates the need for electric elements to pre-heat the fresh air, offering further energy savings.

Due to the building’s close proximity to the sea, a decision was made by the consultants to specify the outdoor condensers with Mitsubishi Electric’s BS coating. The coating is an additional level of protection, applied at the time of manufacture, which helps to prevent sea salt corrosion on the condenser components. As a result this should increase the life of the condenser if correctly maintained.

Command Services are the main contractor for the first stage of the Wellington Indoor Community Centre, and the second stage that the High Performance Sports Facility will occupy, was completed by Abode.