BMT Delivers Round the Clock Workshops for ‘The Hub’ in San Francisco

BMT has delivered a series of globally, co-ordinated, 24-hour wind microclimate workshops to assess the impact new buildings will have on wind conditions in the Market Street Hub (‘The Hub’) area of San Francisco.

Round the clock wind tunnel tests have been carried out on scale models of ‘The Hub’ in BMT’s boundary layer wind tunnel in London, UK.

BMT’s unique capabilities allowed it to run one continuous 48-hour test with engineers situated in the UK, New York and Kuala Lumpur, monitoring results as they happen. Meanwhile, BMT’s Senior Engineer, Dr David Hankin, was on site at the client’s office in San Francisco to help assess the results.

Dr Hankin explains: “The workshops have been carried out to help predict how people in areas around the proposed new buildings in ‘The Hub’ would experience wind conditions and highlight any safety issues, or areas where winds are too strong for people going about every day activities, such as walking and sitting outside cafes and restaurants.”  

Five boundary layer wind tunnel campaigns have assessed the impact of new buildings on Oak Street, Mission Street, South Van Ness Avenue, Van Ness Avenue and Otis Street.  ‘The Hub’ is expected to take on around 7,000 new residents with 3,700 new housing units planned.

Robin Stanfield, BMT’s Head of Client Management, adds: “At any point in time David could have been talking to me in London, the wind tunnel operators in Malaysia, or our team in the New York office who were processing the data. 

We are one of the only companies in the world that can offer this kind of efficient, interactive solution to designing and verifying the effectiveness of wind mitigation measures for projects in San Francisco.”

The data has now been used to help the developers submit a design to the San Francisco Planning Department that will meet its strict criteria.