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Congratulations to Harn Engineering Solutions PCL for the DGNB Gold certification of their new office building!

The certificate was handed over by Managing Director of EGS-plan Dr. Robert Himmler to Khun Thammanoon Tripetchr, CEO of Harn Engineering Solutions PCL.

GTCC Executive Director Dr. Roland Wein delivered congratulatory remarks prior to a speech by Khun Thammanoon Tripetchr about the motivation of the building owner to design and certify the building according to DGNB requirements. Dr. Acharawan Chutarat, Architect and Lighting Designer of Bioarchitek Co., Ltd. gave a talk on the building’s architectural and sustainable design concept. Other participants in the event were Khun Jirachai Thongthipaya Managing Director of Bioarchitek and Khun Paveen Rojchanavisart Deputy Managing Director of EGS-plan and sustainability consultant of the project.

Thank you to Dr. Jain Charnnarong, Executive Director of Harn Engineering Solutions PCL for hosting the event and the invitation.

Following the ceremony, the group took a tour through the building to enjoy the sustainability features such as great thermal comfort, the daylight atrium, the communication spaces, and the biophilic design.

This year’s 3 day company trip was themed “edutainment”, because we travelled to Chiang Mai to visit every day an interesting, sustainable building project in the morning and had fun activities in the afternoon. It was very exciting to see and compare the different approaches on sustainability ranging from low-tech bamboo architecture to energy self-sufficient hydrogen solutions!

The first project was the Panyaden International School which follows a low-tech approach on sustainability because it is mainly built of rammed earth / lime bricks and bamboo. The architect and general contractor Markus Roselieb of Chiangmai Life Architects was so kind to explain us the details of bamboo construction and limestone production.

The second project was the Phi Suea house which is an energy self-sufficient building based on green hydrogen. Sebastian-Justus Schmidt and his team explained the history of the development and the technical details. He is the owner of the house and director of Enapter which produces the hydrogen electrolyzers used in the building.

The final project was the new headquarter of Choice Property Co., Ltd. The project was supported by EGS-plan regarding TREES certification and Commissioning Services. Khun Worawat Tantranon who is the director of Choice Property Co., Ltd. and his son showed us the building which combines modern architecture and traditional Thai design elements.

We would like to thank again the building owners who took their time and explained their respective approaches on sustainability to us.

Bosch erects a new 13,500 m2 green field project in Penang, Malaysia. The building is a facility in clean room quality for testing of electronic components. Bosch is dedicated to improving the sustainability of the company not only through their products but also through environmentally friendly production facilities. Therefore, Bosch has contracted EGS-plan to support the design of a sustainability concept for the building and supervise the implementation from concept to commissioning.

The concept considers environmental, economic, and human factors and tries to balance them in the best possible way. This was achieved by implementing passive design features such as increased thermal insulation, external shading, double glazing, and natural ventilation where possible. The technical services such as air-handling units, pumps and chiller are of the highest energy efficiency currently available. Furthermore, a significant part of the energy demand is covered by a photovoltaic system on the roof of the building.

The building materials have a low toxicity and are easy to dismantle and recycle in future. EGS-plan conducts a full Life-Cycle-Assessment (LCA) to support design decisions. The interior design of the office part of the building considers biophilic design elements and encourages communication and creativity in the workspaces. Thermal comfort and human well-being will be maintained by a dedicated fresh air ventilation system and passive chilled ceilings. A biotope at the northern border of the land plot increases biodiversity at the location.
The building strives for Sustainable Building Certification according to the German DGNB system. The building will be commissioned end of 2022.

#sustainability #sustainablebuilding #greenbuilding #dgnb #bosch

We are looking for a highly motivated and experienced commissioning engineer for LEED, TREES and DGNB certified building projects, who is eager to guide and manage the commissioning team of EGS-plan. The overall goal is to develop tools and procedures to achieve a consistent and commissioning quality in our projects.

Job description and responsibilities:

• Guide and manage the commissioning team of EGS-plan
• Improve tools, templates and procedures for commissioning projects
• Provide Commissioning services for green building certification (e.g. LEED, TREES and DGNB):
• Develop owner’s projects requirements, review bases of design, write commissioning plan, pre-functional checklists
• Coordinate and manage the commissioning process
• Conduct site visits, supervise functional tests, write protocols
• Follow up and review submitted commissioning documents from the contractor
• Write reports (mostly in English language) and submit to international green building councils
• Conduct Energy Audits in buildings, analyze findings, give recommendations, develop presentations
• Implement Measurement & Verification concepts and monitoring-based commissioning, analyze measurement data, give recommendations, develop presentations

Key skills/experience required:

• Thai Nationals only
• Bachelor or Master Degree in mechanical engineering
• 7-8 years of experience in relevant fields
• Must have at least adjunct engineering certificate
• 4-5 years of extensive experience in building MEP design and/or building MEP commissioning and /or operation
• Knowledge and understanding of:
• ASHRAE 90.1 – Energy Standard
• ASHRAE 55 – Thermal Comfort
• ASHRAE 62.1 and 62.2 – Ventilation and IAQ
• ASHRAE Guideline – Commissioning Process for Buildings and Systems
• Proficiency in English reading, speaking and report writing
• Must be self-motivated
• TOEIC > 800 is a plus
• Study in an English-speaking country is a plus
• Accredited LEED AP or TREES-A will be an advantage
• Excellent interpersonal skills, ability to work in a team environment is required
• Excellent communication, good negotiating abilities
• Ability to do technical report in English

Apply here: https://bit.ly/3tgSTrP

EGS-plan has supported the project with fundamental commissioning services. Building commissioning is a quality management process, which verifies, that the technical systems of a new building are meeting the owner’s project requirements. Therefore, commissioning starts right at the beginning of a new building project before the design starts. In regular periods, the design and the construction of a project will be checked and compared by EGS-plan’s commissioning experts with the original owner’s expectations. The actual commissioning work starts for our team with finalizing of the construction and startup of the technical systems. A commissioning plan clarifies responsibilities and provides functional checklists, so that the startup of the building is a structured process, despite of the final hectic weeks of a construction project. The result is a building which works as intended with a low energy consumption, great thermal comfort and low maintenance costs.

EGS-plan (Bangkok) Co., Ltd. has contributed with the energy and sustainability concept as well as the DGNB certification to the project. Main goal was to achieve an excellent work environment and highest environmental quality.

The sustainability concept comprises of a high-performance building envelope with double glazing with low-e coating, efficient thermal insulation, an airtightness concept and external shading. Fresh air is delivered by an air handling unit with energy recovery, the lighting system comprises of direct-indirect LED lamps and no harmful building materials were used. Energy is supplied by a district cooling system and a solar rooftop system, which produces more renewable energy than required for building operation (net-zero).

For its outstanding sustainability concept, the building was awarded with the first DGNB Platinum certificate for office buildings in Southeast Asia.

The new Bangkok Hospital in Chiang Rai was awarded LEED Gold. The hospital building has a gross floor area of approximately 16,800 sqm on 7 stories and a basement. The building was certified according to LEED V3 for healthcare buildings by our partner company Africvs Co., Ltd.

EGS-plan (Bangkok) Co., Ltd. supported the LEED certification of the building with our engineering services for fundamental and enhanced commissioning. Building commissioning is a quality management process, which verifies, that the technical systems and the building envelope of a new building are meeting the owner’s project requirements. In regular periods, the design and the construction of a project will be checked and compared with the original owner’s expectations. The actual commissioning work starts with finalizing of the construction and startup of the technical systems. A commissioning plan clarifies responsibilities and provides functional checklists, so that the startup of the building is a structured process, despite of the final hectic weeks of a construction project.

The result is a building which works as intended with a low energy consumption, great thermal comfort and low maintenance costs.

EGS-plan’s engineering team attended a TREES training on 25th and 26th of March to become TREES Associate New Construction (TREES-A NC). TREES is the locale green building certification system developed and provided by the Thai Green Building Institute TGBI. All members of the engineering team successfully passed the training and the consecutive exam. This will improve the deeper understanding of the engineering team when they provide their commissioning services for TREES certification projects.

The PARQ is a mixed-use office building located in the center of Bangkok and has a total gross floor area of approximately 134,000 m2 on 16 floors. The project strives for the highest sustainability goals and achieved a Gold certification according to LEED V4 (C&S). Green building consultant was our partner company Africvs Co., Ltd.

EGS-plan has contributed to the project with our commissioning services including fundamental and monitoring based commissioning. While fundamental commissioning covers a basic quality control during design and construction of a building, monitoring based commissioning is a rather new methodology to use the building management system or any other data logging technology to supervise the startup of a new construction project. This is giving the opportunity to not only do the usual spot measurement during fundamental commissioning, but to conduct a continues supervision of the energy performance of a building over a longer period of time.

The result is a building which provides an outstanding environmental performance and a healthy and productive work environment for the building occupants.

The development of the Thai Building Energy Code (BEC) goes back to the early 90s but has been delayed due to political blockades. Finally, in March 2021 an updated version will be enforced and applies to new buildings with a gross floor area of more than 10,000 sqm. This requirement will be tightened in future by reducing the floor area to 5,000 sqm in 2021 and 2,000 sqm in 2023 onward and hence increasing the number of concerned buildings.

As a new service EGS-plan (Bangkok) Co., Ltd. is offering to conduct BEC calculations for new construction projects. EGS-plan has officially certified BEC auditors who can consult design teams to fulfil or overfulfil BEC requirements with cost-efficient technologies and design strategies.

The BEC sets minimum requirements regarding the thermal performance of the building façade (OTTV), roof (RTTV), lighting (LPD), air conditioning (AC) and renewable energies (RE). To allow more flexibility in regard to the building design it is also possible to follow a whole building approach where the weakness of one system can be compensated by the strength of another system.