Chilled beams help transform prison into luxury hotel

19 February, 2006

Comfort cooling for the luxury bedrooms in this former prison, now a hotel, is provided by Trox passive chilled beams.

Part of the transformation of a former prison into a luxury Malmaison Hotel includes the installation of 77 chilled beams to convert the former cells of A-Wing t Oxford Castle into opulent bedrooms. Trox (UK) supplied these passive beams in a contract worth £100 000 and customised their design to blend in with their surroundings. Trox also supplied a range of fan-coil units, attenuators and grilles for the project. This former prison has been used as a location for television and film productions, including ‘Spy game’, ‘Mean machines’, ‘102 Dalmatians’, ‘Inspector Morse’, ‘The Bill’ and ‘Bad girls’. Trox worked closely with the professional team — including developers The Osborne Group/Oxford Castle Ltd, consultant Cameron Taylor Brad, architect Architects Design Partnership and M&E contractor Norstead — to develop these exposed passive chilled beams. They are constructed of aluminium extrusion, with perforated faces, profiled to fit the dome-shaped ceilings. Trox made samples of the beams and built a mock-up of a hotel room in its test laboratory to thoroughly assess the thermal performance of the beams before installation. The buildings of the former castle and prison have also been developed into eight restaurants and a market square with upmarket trading stalls and open places for performances of Shakespeare, opera and jazz and open-air cinema. It was used as a prison until 1997.

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