Situated in the Centre of Cardiff stands the state-of-the-art £120 Million BBC Cymru Wales Headquarters.

Construction started on this landmark building in December 2015 and the buildings first live transmission was made in July 2020. CMB Engineering proudly played a leading role in making this happen, from the initial base build project through to the fit out works and finally handover in January 2019.

The hybrid structure utilises several build practises, with a 2,000-tonne steel frame superstructure for the upper floors, a reinforced concrete frame to ground floor level and concrete cores throughout. With the use of sustainable features such as rainwater harvesting and roof mounted photovoltaic cells the impressive building was awarded a BREEAM Outstanding Accreditation upon completion.

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Naturally, a bespoke state of the art building such as this, required our dedicated team of engineers, directly employed site operatives and subcontractors to work together to overcome the complex nature of the M&E services required. Working in partnership with Rightacres, AECOM and Fosters & Partners, the project was successfully delivered on time with CMB providing the Mechanical and Electrical services including:

• Mechanical Heating System serving underfloor heating, trench heating, fan coils, air handling units and radiators throughout.

• Chilled Water Systems comprising of roof mounted chillers serving chilled beams and air handling units.

• Domestic Hot & Cold-Water Services throughout via Hot Water Cylinders.

• Unique to this building is the installation of 2No. D.R.U.P.S units - Diesel Rotary Uninterruptible Power Supply Devices which can power the whole building fully loaded for four days and nights.

• Full Building Management Systems including Smart Metering of all utilities and PUE Factor.

• Smoke Extract control system.

• Car Park Exhaust Ventilation.

• DX Cooling system to Server rooms and Changing Areas.

• Ventilation Air Handling Units, Extract Fans, Fire Rated Kitchen Extract and Fan Coils.

• Electrical package including….EXOR Intelligent Lighting System, HV and LV Network, Rising Busbar, Photovoltaic Panels.

• DENCO Close Control Ventilation Units providing cooling to edit suites.

• Supply and Installation of hot and cold aisle containment to bespoke server room.

• Inergen Gas Suppression System.

• Fire Alarm.

• Sprinkler Systems including Foam, Dry Riser, Pre-Action and Wet Charged Systems.

• Rainwater Harvesting System for toilets and roof garden supplies.

• Natural Gas and Oil installation.

• Lift Pit Sump Pumping Sets.

• Vehicle Washdown WRAS approved Cat5 installations.

• Trace Heating.

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This BBC Headquarters is one of the highest valued projects we have secured and ran in conjunction with our 25th Anniversary showing off just how far we have grown as a company.