About

The Gym utilises composite insulated panels on the roof and walls and completely insulated floor slabs that provide a complete thermal envelope. The building also has a bespoke Air Source Heat Pump hot water and heating system that provides heating in the colder months and cooling in the summer months.

The heating is provided through a mixture of air blowers in the gym area and underfloor heating to the changing rooms, therapy room, café, shop areas and meeting rooms. These are powered by a large solar array that covers the whole roof of Southern Quarter but is completely hidden from view behind the parapet walls.

Due to the highly efficient nature of the building, the solar panels also feed a battery backup system to store unused power. When these are full they then provide surplus energy directly back to the National Grid. Southern Quarter has been designed to generate more power than it requires to operate making it carbon negative.

With energy-saving lighting systems and a water-saving changing room design, Southern Quarter are proud to have a gym that champions the very highest standards of carbon reduction, sustainable building practices and utilising green energy.

Southern Quarter is the very first building in the world to have a carbon-reducing additive added to the concrete. Concretene is a graphene-based state-of-the-art nanoplatelet additive that is being used. It will be monitored for performance by the designers, Nationwide Engineering Group working with Manchester University and the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre.

This completely new product removes all steel reinforcement from the concrete and also reduces the cement required as well as the amount of concrete required. Southern Quarter have agreed to use our new building as the first real-world test of this revolutionary product. As a result, the carbon reduction within our building has been reduced by over 70% from a standard build design.

Publications & Information:

New Civil Engineer 

The University of Manchester – The home of graphene (Video 3:11)