Six green stars in a warm tropical climate – William McCormack place phase 2 - case study

The William McCormack Place Stage 2 (WMP2) building is located in Cairns, North Queensland. The climate is classified as tropical equatorial, hot and humid. It is a government tenanted office building comprising 9 levels and just over 9500 m2 net lettable area (NLA). This paper summarises the key strategies employed in the HVAC systems and discusses the thermal and CFD modelling involved during the design stage to optimise the building’s environmental performance. This building’s performance shows that even in a hot tropical environment, decisions made at the earliest stages of a building design, backed by sound building modelling and simulation technology can have a significant impact on the indoor environment quality, energy and water consumption.