Says value engineering is among its core competencies

Vastu & Engineering Consultancy JLT opened its doors for business on June 24 in Dubai. Shafiq Al Khoory, the Director of MKH Holding, inaugurated the office, in Jumeirah Lake Towers (JLT), Dubai.

Shafiq Al Khoory inaugurates the office, as Prabhakar Naik looks on

Vastu, which stands for Value Added Sustainable Technical Unit, is spearheaded by Prabhakar Naik, who has held several engineering-related assignments in the GCC. “As per our acronym, our aim is to use renewable energy, and our motto is to save on power and water by optimising on the design,” Naik, who is the Managing Director of the company, said. “We aim to save on power and water even in existing buildings. To date, Naik said he had been successful in achieving 40% savings in two buildings under operation in DP World. Naik added that he was able to demonstrate that the buildings had been overdesigned to capacity. Likewise, he said he was able to reduce the cooling load at A3 Tower in JLT by 50%, where again the issue was of over-designing to capacity.

Naik said he also undertook a value engineering exercise at the under-construction Aspen Tower in Sheikh Zayed Road. By focusing on the efficiency of the standalone plant, he claimed, he was able to save AED 6 million out of a total MEP cost of AED 37 million.

The Aspen Tower, Naik said, would be using polished TSE as make-up water. “We are putting an RO treatment plant, and the payback is less than a year and a half,” Naik said. “The cost is recovered, and the building owner will get the water at a cheap rate for 25 years, which is the traditional lifecycle of a building in the UAE.”

Vastu, Naik said, will offer district cooling and building services expertise. The company, he added, already had a few projects in the pipeline in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.