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Monaco - Lycée Technique Hôtelier (2014)

Prince Albert’s is personally involved in water saving policy for Monaco with his foundation FPA2 and requested his consultants at Monaco Engineering to include the latest rainwater technology in as many of the Principalities’ projects as possible.

Following the great success of the installation for the New National Museum in Monaco (“Villa Paloma”) they have decided to go a step further in Rainwater harvesting and challenged AQUALITY to design a unique system for the ambitious project of “Lycée Technique Hôtelier de Monaco” (www.fpa2.org)

This new tower of 16 storey’s (9 above ground, 7 underground) is a school for apprentices and Chefs and has on site  its practice restaurant “Le Cordon d’Or”. The new building also incorporates a sports hall, an auditorium and a car park.

Due to lack of space available in the building (projected roof is only 1500m²) the Consultants wanted to maximize the storage capacity using any space available. At the same time they wanted this system to be very energy efficient but with a peak flow of 44m3/h.

Based on that, the Aquality design team created a unique system: collecting rainwater from the 1500m² building’s roof.

Rainwater is filtered via Aquality’s revolutionary AWD filter, stored into two separated tanks (one of 8m3 at Level -2  next to the sport hall; the other of 77m3 underneath the car park, 20m below) and managed by a fully bespoke AQUA-Control 5000.

The AQUA-Control 5000 is equipped with 2 variable speed pumps, digital touch screen, MW top-up and exclusive management software (the unit manages both storage tanks, regarding level, several security butterfly valves, lifting pumps,…).

Starting from scratch the project took only 4 months from design, production, testing, installation to commissioning.

During the opening day Prince Albert and Princess Charlène visited the entire building; including the technical room with the AQUA-Control rain manager where they were introduced to its basic functions. After one year of operation, Monaco’s Ministry of Education is fully satisfied with the system.

There is an interesting twist to the story as after a couple of months of operation, the cookery school decided to launch a new educational project where students can grow their own vegetables and fruit in the gardens of the “Villa Paloma”.

The gardens are supplied with rainwater from Aquality’s rain manager and the students harvest and cook their produce in the restaurant “Le Cordon d’Or”.