tOMOrrOW's AnsWers tODAY - AkzoNobel

24
Top: The Media-TIC building in Barcelona has an
outer skin which can be inflated and deflated to
regulate temperature.
Above: No.1 Bligh Street might look unassuming,
but it has won a string of awards for its
clever design.
which helped No.1 Bligh Street become the Australian winner of
the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Award for 2012.
Sustainability, as you’d expect, also plays a crucial role in
what has been dubbed Australia’s first green skyscraper. The
building is enclosed by a double-skin, transparent façade which
responds to the movement of the sun to help regulate temperature.
The structure also features solar thermal tubes on the roof.
These generate hot water for use in the building, as well as feeding
into an absorption chiller to form part of the cooling system. In
fact, the building produces 100,000 liters of clean water per day
from the sewage system, which is enough to fill one Olympic
swimming pool every two weeks. At the top of the building, the
inner glass skin peels away to create a large outdoor timber
terrace which features a number of banksia trees – yes, you heard
right, there are trees on the roof. With such clever innovations as
these, it’s no wonder No.1 Bligh Street was awarded six green
stars for its environmental design and construction from the
Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) – its highest rating.
Indeed, sustainability features highly in many buildings that
win design awards. It was certainly a major factor behind the
success of the Media-TIC building in Barcelona, Spain, which
won the prestigious World Building of the Year Award for 2011
at the World 2011 Architecture Festival (WAF). The building,
which began life as a warehouse but later fell into disrepair, has
been completely transformed into the futuristic home hub of
the local technology industry.
The cube-like Media-TIC, which is just a shade under 40
meters in height, features its own eye-catching inflating and
deflating skin. The once sad-looking warehouse has embraced
this special ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) skin, which can
be inflated and deflated to regulate the building’s temperature.
The skin works as a sun filter, opening in winter to allow light in
and to aid the collection of solar energy, but closing in summer
to shade the building, therefore limiting the use of heating and
air-conditioning. Rainwater is also collected and recycled for use
in the building’s non-potable plumbing system. This, and other
smart sensors, help to boost energy efficiency, meaning the
structure can boast close to net-zero carbon emissions.
But sustainability wasn’t the only reason the Media-TIC won
Building of the Year. The architects were interested in creating a
“digital city”, with a focus on knowledge, added value and patents.
Media-TIC is designed to be a meeting point for the like-minded
technology gurus of Barcelona, where they can generate and
share ideas and knowledge, as well as improve their skills.
So what’s next for building design? What will the structures
that win the design awards of tomorrow look like? “In the future,
buildings may well be able to think for themselves from enhanced
environmental and security systems, controlled through ever
more complex IT solutions,” concludes Muse. “It may be possible
for a building to move to capture the orientation of the sun and
economize on power, heating, cooling and lighting requirements
depending on the number of occupants and their location within
the building.” It would appear then, that as building design
evolves, so we head deeper and deeper into the realms of
science fiction.