BUILDING SCIENCE I
Project 1 : Case Study: Analysing passive design strategies
Building Science 1 introduces a more critical thinking part of building design, regarding on how as architects apply passive designs in the building to make it thermally comfortable for the occupants. Passive design strategies are the core of maintaining and enhancing human body temperature through many factors.
For this project, my group and I chose the Shalini Ganendra Art House, which is a contemporary art gallery in PJ. It was designed by award-winning architect, Ken Yeang, as an exhibition space that embraces aesthetic and conceptual distinction. This building presents unique green features including a wind chimney, bioswales, and turf ramps. The space was awarded a PAM Architects Excellence Award, 2011. It is also the second project in Malaysia in Malaysia to receive a final certification from GBI.
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The following is some of the photos that we took on our site visit.
The completed boards
The passive designs that we chose is the wind chimney and the sun shading devices.
Understanding the science behind building design is clearly expected in this architecture course, but it was not as easy as I had in mind.We had to learn to use several software such as Revit (sun-shading), Flow Design (wind simulation) and Climate Consultant (psychometric chart) to show simulations and show how the design strategies worked. We learned to read diagrams such as the sun path and bioclimatic charts. We are highly dependable on simulations and software skills to provide a better understanding of the building, but for now as students, it is the best for us to acquire basic foundation knowledge of the building science.