TROX TRANSFORMS BAD GIRLS’ PRISON INTO LUXURY HOTEL
02/12/2005
In a contract worth £100,000, air movement specialist Trox (UK) has supplied 77 chilled beams to transform the former prison at Oxford Castle - used as a location for TV and film productions including Spy Game, Mean Machine, 102 Dalmatians, Inspector Morse, The Bill, and Bad Girls - into a luxury Malmaison hotel.
The former cells of A-Wing at Oxford Castle have been converted into opulent bedrooms, each fitted with two Trox passive chilled beams, selected for their quality of architectural design and performance. Trox has custom designed the beams to blend in perfectly with their high class surroundings and provide the optimum in comfort cooling for the refurbished prison’s more prestigious new occupants. Trox also supplied a range of fan coil units, attenuators and grilles for the project.
Trox worked closely with the professional team – including developers The Osborne Group/Oxford Castle Limited, consultant Cameron Taylor Brady, architect Architects Design Partnership, and M&E contractor Norstead – to develop the SPL TCB-EB exposed passive chilled beams, which are constructed of aluminium extrusion, with perforated faces, profiled to fit the dome-shaped ceilings.
Trox manufactured samples of the beams and built a mock up of one of the hotel rooms at its Thetford test laboratory, to enable the beams’ thermal performance to be thoroughly assessed prior to installation. The factory-assembled beams were then delivered to site in returnable wooden crates. This had the triple advantage of helping to protect the environment (since the crates are reusable), protecting the beams during transit, and making on-site handling easier.
The buildings of the former castle and prison have now also been developed into eight restaurants, together with a market square with upmarket trading stalls and open places for performances, including Shakespeare, open-air cinema, opera and jazz evenings. Also on the site is ‘Oxford Castle Unlocked’, the visitor attraction centre run by Oxford Preservation Trust (opening spring 2006) and the 03 Art Gallery as part of the £40m Oxford Castle Heritage Project. Oxford Castle is the site of William the Conqueror's Motte and Bailey Castle built soon after the Norman Conquest of 1066. It was in use as a prison until 1997.
The site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and its buildings enjoy the status of Grade I and II star listed buildings in the statutory list of buildings of Architectural and Historical Interest.
