New BMW showroom in KZN selects Johnson Controls’ turnkey York chiller solution

The new BMW showroom on Edwin Swales Drive in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal will have an eye-catching double volume glass display frontage. Facing north-west, the showrooms will catch much of the midday and late afternoon sun. With the comfort of customers and staff paramount, a turnkey air conditioning and environmental control solution was needed. Johnson Controls in KZN was the natural partner in fulfilling these requirements for consulting engineers, WSP, and MG Architects & Project Managers cc (a Joint Venture with Paledi Morrison Meyer Pienaar Architects and Urban Designers).

Says Mark Freeman of Johnson Controls Systems & Service Building Efficiency division: “The design and engineering consultants on this project wanted a HVAC solution. We assisted with the specification, looking at the cooling capacity and the specific controls that would be needed. We then put together a solution that featured the York YLAA Air Cooled chiller, Controls and Switchgear.

“The specification from BMW called for ‘green’ engineering, so a façade engineer was employed to get the shading for the showroom right. In addition, energy efficient smart glass was used and exposed equipment was treated with a high quality anticorrosion solution,”  Says Yusuf Ganie of MG Architects.

Shén Voget of WSP says the HVAC challenges they faced for the new BMW showroom were two-fold: “The first was dealing with the large area of glass frontage, and the second was catering for two completely different zones – the showroom with its huge volume of space and few people, and the administrative offices right next to it that would house a large number of staff. We still needed to get the internal environmental controls fine tuned, so Johnson Controls met with us in the initial design phase, offering sound solutions and advice.”

According to Voget they selected the York solution because it offered the best solution to their zone control problem. Johnson Controls was also able to offer them the complete package, with the chiller, pumps and controls.

Notes Freeman: “The York YLAA is a 380kW air cooled chiller for low capacity cooling. Three air handling units will be used to direct air cooling capacity where it is needed, while the controls will facilitate variable air volume management.”

The chiller has been shipped and will be installed by end June by the primary HVAC contractor, eThekwini Air.

Says Freeman: “What differentiates Johnson Controls in the HVAC market is the breadth of the York range. It meets the needs of small to large facilities and incorporates ‘green’ technologies and the latest advances in HVAC design and engineering. In addition to the high level of expertise our sales engineers in KZN can now offer our clients, we are very focussed on identifying the right solution for our clients and backing that up with appropriate guarantees. York Works, a software solution used globally by York, will assist our customers to find the optimal solution with the desired efficiencies and functionality to meet their requirements and their budget.”

“The KZN York team is pleased to deliver this turnkey HVAC project for BMW – it’s a showcase for our expertise and the York product as much as it is for their vehicles.”