More Floor Space within the building height
First, what happens to the ceiling void that would otherwise be necessary to house the air conditioning ducts? It disappears -- and with it up to 500 mm of unnecessary height. At First Point BAA Lynton were able to provide 25% more floor area within the same volume compared with a similar building using conventional air conditioning. For skyscrapers such as the Centre in Hong Kong (Dennis Lau & Ng Chun Man), or Menara Telekom in Kuala Lumpur (Hijjas Kasturi Associates), it means another ten or more floors without making the building any taller. For older buildings, either with restricted ceiling heights or with decorative or strongly modelled existing ceilings, it means the need for suspended ceilings is completely eliminated. A prominent recent application of FSS in the refurbishment sector is the development in West London for J C Decaux by Sir Norman Foster.

Reduced contract time
Second, the ability to lay a complete FSS flooring installation in a couple of days and the elimination of complicated suspended ceilings allows major savings in construction time. First Point was erected in 38 weeks compared with 52 to 65 weeks for a comparable building using suspended ceilings. With every contract week saved being worth about £50,000 in reduced costs, this makes for big savings.

Easy change to the layout at any time
Third, Hiross FSS's flexibility eliminates the need for expensive last-minute layout changes between briefing and handover. The ease of adding further fantiles also reduces the temptation to over-specify to allow for future expansion.

Substantial Tax Advantages
Fourth, the use of flooring as a complete system allows it and its covering to be reassigned for tax purposes. At 4 Millbank, the first development in Britain to use FSS, capital allowances amounted to £8 million on a total service cost of £5.5 million. Office space used to be a commodity that developers supplied to a fairly basic level, for a completely speculative market. Increasingly however, developers are building for known tenants, who are in a position to specify an air conditioning system such as Hiross that can clearly demonstrate savings in overall lifecycle costs.

Increased designer control
Meanwhile for architects, the Hiross Flexible Space System means bringing one of the last untamed areas of a building within the designer's control.

The logic behind Hiross FSS is examined in detail in a QuickTime movie on a CD-ROM which AET can send you.