General Overview

Description of the renovation and its purpose

The building is part of historical area that is under reconstruction for the use of Faculty of information technologies. The building is currently a warehouse and will be retrofitted for social and culture activities of students and academics and also as a restaurant and partly student hostel. Planned completion date is the end of 2005. Currently Ministry of Education of the Czech republic pledged to cover the budget for retrofit based on an architectural design that doesn't take into account advanced implementation of renewables nor advanced hybrid ventilation system.

Status up to today

The Brewery is an old industrial-type building in a historical area of the city of Brno. The Brewery and some other buildings in the area have been retrofitted for the use of the Faculty of Information Technologies of the Brno University of Technology. The name Brewery refers to the purpose that the building was originally used for, however, it only served as a warehouse in the recent past. The retrofitting of the Brewery involved a complete change of use. The industrial-type building had to be transformed into a modern social and culture centre for students and academics. Many building structures had to be rebuilt or reinforced during the retrofit and all the building systems had to be designed from scratch.
The result is very convincing. (April 2008)

The project is in the final stage – the stage of monitoring and data analysis. Some problems with the data acquisition have been sorted out. It seems, after nearly six month of monitoring, that the target values of energy performance will be met.(September 2007)

The “Brewery” building is near completion. The commissioning is in progress. The “Brewery” should be handed over to the Brno University of Technology by the end of March 2007. The monitoring phase will start in April 2007.

The design phase ended in November 2005 and the technical documentation for the BRITA in PuBs project is complete. The amendment to the contract with the general supplier of construction work was prepared. The amendment includes the BRITA in PuBs energy saving measures. The construction work will begin in April 2006 and the building should be commissioned by October 31, 2006. A new roof with dormers on the two-story part of the Brewery was built and the outlets for the ventilation systems in the roof ridge were prepared. The condensing boilers were installed in the heating plant, which is located outside the “Brewery” building.

In November 2004, demolition works on the construction site started. In December, the investor - Brno University - checked the inflow of water into the underground water reservoir. Finally based on these tests it was decided to quit the idea of using the reservoir for a heat pump - too small inflow. In December 2004, "someone" submitted an application to the Ministry of Culture to place the Brewery on the list of national heritage. Because of that, there is no possibility to install any thermal insulation on the outside walls. Every Tuesday there are regular meetings of architects, works inspector and planners at the architectural company, who is the main contractor for planning and design works. They subcontract specialists for individual building plants. A special focus meeting was held on January 18, 2005 from which final decisions about different mechanical systems came up.