9 Bioclimatic Designs - Low Carbon Materials Processing

Department of Engineering
‘Engineering for a Low Carbon Future’
‘The Weather Within’,
9 Bioclimatic Designs
7th November 2007
Alan Short
Professor of Architecture, Cambridge University
Fellow, Clare Hall
www.shortandassociates.co.uk

The 1908 Exposition and Celebration of
Electricity, Marseilles. Electricity is pouring
out of the ends of the fingers of an Edwardian
It-girl. Despite global inter-governmental
reservations, there is still a determined effort
to revalidate this ecstatic Architectural scene.

7 Questions one hardly dare ask:
1. What does ‘Sustainability’ mean?
2. Is there really a Global Problem?
3. How are buildings implicated?
4. Are we heading for a new Dark Age under
the pressures of political correctness?
5. Is ‘sustainable’ design necessarily
primitive?
6. Can one make an ‘Architecture’ out
of ‘good’ environmental intentions?
7. Why don’t we just wait for Technology
to deal with the problem?
These are perfectly reasonable questions.

The Shift in Global Carbon Dioxide concentration and a
crude approximation of the 45-47% contribution made
by the built environment in a westernised economy (
32% in China, MoC figures).
Sources; Bjorn Lomborg,’The Skeptical
Environmentalist; Max Fordham

Global surface temperatures to 2000
and SRES model predictions to 2100
based on a number of scenarios
considered by the Inter-governmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Contraction and Convergence: How are
buildings implicated in realising this strategy?
20 billion sq.m.of new building envisaged in
China by 2020 and the same to follow, (Vice
Minister Qiu Bao-xing, MoC 2006), doubling
its current floorspace.

Decre Department Store, Nantes 1931,
architect Henri Sauvage.
The late modern ideal: minimal physical
substance, all glass, spectacularly
illuminated all day and night, indelibly
associated with progress and commercial
credibility across the globe.

Leading practitioners perpetuate this
late modern ideal. Zaha Hadid’s office has
recently released details of the new
86000sq.m. all glass OPUS development in
Dubai. Temperatures periodically exceed
40degC, 56% of total annual hours exceed
28degC, 2250 hours of working time. The sky
illuminance is very high. All of which suggests
a prodigious energy input to sustain the
internal environment.

Energy Costs in UK Offices;
refrigeration, fans, pumps etc.
associated with air-conditioning count
for about a third of energy expended
in an air-conditioned office building.
Remember that mechanical airhandling
is still the industry standard,
probably more so in the era of Design
and Build and PFI, it’s risk free.

The universal ‘Heliothermic’ site
planning tool, 1936. No longer any
need for elaborate and lengthy
courses in Architecture.

A different approach: the Architecture, the
physical stuff of the building, is configured to
moderate the internal environment,
‘the weather within’ .
Sue Roaf’s sketch section through one of the wind-catcher
cooled houses in Yazd on the central Iranian Plateau.
’The structures are plain atop, only Ventoso’s or Funnels
for to let in the Air. No house is left without this
contrivance….giving at once a pleasing Spectacle to
Strangers and kind refreshment to the inhabitants’
(John Fryer 1698)

A typology of Bio-climatic environmental
design strategies across various climates;
Mediterranean, temperate, modified
temperate and continental.
Type A Mediterranean, 34degN.
Short CA (2004) World Architecture 08/170 pp20-33,Beijing.

Malta lies at 34 degrees north, a little further
south than Tunis. It hangs off the southern tip of
Sicily, to the top left of Danti’s 16th century map in
the Vatican map room.
The June sun achieves an altitude of 81 degrees;
peak August temperatures reach 38-40 degC but
drop to as low as 16 degC regularly enough to
support a night cooling strategy. Twenty years on,
this summer condition seems much more familiar
to us in the UK and may eventually become our
climate.

The Marquis Scicluna’s ‘Cisk’ Brewery, Mriehel,
Malta, an Imperial Great West Road type
commercial/industrial building, interpreted in
stone, responding a little to its environmental
context and to the Maltese architectural
continuum.

The brewery used open fermentation
baths, designed in the 1930’s, the
standard mid century design around the
globe. The entire space was chilled to 7-
8 deg C. The enclosure was a mere
100mm of uninsulated mass concrete.

The original industry-standard feasibility study for
the Process Building, proposing a lightweight
shed, clad in corrugated steel, fully airconditioned,
made from imported materials,
transplanted from Burton-on-Trent into the
Southern Mediterranean.

TYPE A: HOT SUMMER DAYS AND
COOL NIGHTS.
The strategy is wholly passive. Natural stack
ventilation is encouraged, particularly at night, to
pre-cool a thermally massive and insulated
limestone structure. This was the first insulated
building in Malta. The north, public elevation.

TYPE A: HOT SUMMER DAYS AND
COOL NIGHTS.
As night falls, vents open connecting the
Process Hall to the stacks. An airflow develops
as a result of the pressure and temperature
differences naturally occurring, the flow varying
through the night but achieving up to 12 air
changes/hour at its peak

The south elevation.
Cast glass topped solar chimneys sit on
top of a 14m high diaphragm wall, its
cellular structure used to configure an
intake labyrinth to filter out airborne sand.

A square wind-catcher on a Yazdi house.
(image by Sue Roaf 1976)
‘The architect who builds a solar furnace and then
introduces a vast refrigerating plant to make it
habitable is underestimating the complexity of the
problem and working below the proper standards
of architecture.’ Hassan Fathy 1970.

One of the southerly solar stacks, formed
in polished limestone and cast glass, our
version of a ‘ventoso’. The vents have
been opened in daylight, briefly, after a
long negotiation, for the photographer,
Peter Cook.

The workman-like side elevation of the
Cathedral Presbytery at Mdina, a very
modest articulation through the use of
projecting stone banding.

The building under construction, a
strangely heavyweight modern building.
Three stone yards were set up to dress
each block to a final precise dimension;
the masonry coursing of the blocks is
expressed as a deliberate architectural
element, a modern innovation in the
unbroken continuity of Maltese masonry
Architecture.

The opening ceremony.
An economy outside the United States and
Northwest Europe receives an industrial plant to
re-export western products back to the west
earning foreign exchange. It conforms to the
necessary US/EU hygiene requirements, but with
none of the attendant energy implications, saving
some 70 tonnes of associated carbon dioxide
production per year.

Nick Baker’s FRED model prediction of likely
conditions within the process hall during a once in
40 year heat wave. The model predicts a natural
respiration rate climbing to 12 air changes per
hour driven entirely by temperature/pressure
differences.

Recorded temperatures, mid-June to mid-July.
External temperatures climb to 39degC. and
drop to 16degC. But the Process Hall internal
surface temperatures are maintained within a
2.5 deg. band around 25degC. Up to 14degC
of cooling is achieved with virtually no
expenditure of energy.

A typology of Bio-climatic environmental
design strategies in various climates.
Type B; Temperate North-west
European, medium density public
buildings.

TYPE B: TEMPERATE; WARM DAYS, COOL
NIGHTS, COOL WINTERS,
The Lanchester Library; 110,000 sq.ft. on 5
floors, floorplates are 150ft square;
naturally lit, naturally ventilated and passively
cooled. The structure is heavy but
conventional; exposed flat slabs and a brick
masonry skin (BDA Building of the Year 2000,
SCONUL Library of the Year 2001).

TYPE B
Air is supplied through four atria, unoccupied and sealed
with controlled openings into the occupied spaces.
They admit natural light into reading areas; book stacks
occupy the occluded floor plates between the pools of light.
Lanchester Library: ground
floor plan.
1 = Corner light wells, supply air, 2 = central light well, exhaust air, 3 =
perimeter stacks, exhaust air, 4 = air intakes to the plenum around the
whole of the perimeter, 5 = rooms joined directly to the air supply, 6 =
rooms joined directly to the air exhaust, 7 = acoustically treated air transfer
ducts, 8 = larger rooms span from the light well to the perimeter, 9 = main
entrance

Air passes first through a plenum between ground
and lower ground floors. It can be heated on entry
into the lightwells and again on entry to each floor.
The lightwell tops are vented continuously to
reduce solar gains, actuated blinds help too.
Could this be a large health building?
Lanchester Library: air supply strategy.
1 = Fresh air inlet, 2 = fresh air supply plenum, 3 = trench
heating, 4 = heater batteries, 5 = light wells providing ventilation
and daylight, 6 = building energy management system-controlled
louvres, 7 = ventilated void, 8 = retractable translucent blinds, 9 =
well-insulated roof

Lanchester Library; IESD’s computational
fluid dynamics simulation of the evolving
design on a warm day. The top floor,
connected into the single compartment of
the lower floors, is receiving warmed
exhaust air. The built scheme treats the
upper floor independently with dedicated
stacks.

Air is exhausted via 20 perimeter stacks,
which connect the lower three floors, and a
central atrium. The top floor is separately
vented through additional stacks and
compartmented from the lower three floors to
prevent exhaust seeping back into the upper
part of the building.
Lanchester Library: air exhaust strategy.
1 = Carbon dioxide and temperature sensors providing input to the building
energy management system, 2 = perimeter radiators with thermostats, 3 =
exhaust dampers at a high level on each floor, 4 = castellated beams, 5 =
thermally massive (concrete) ceilings, painted white to assist daylight
penetration, 6 = light well providing ventilation and daylight with solar
shading, 7 = stack termination with wind protection, 8 = building energy
management system-controlled windows, 9 = dedicated stacks to the third
floor

Glazing is defended against summer solar gain
by accentuating the depth of the wall.

Average temperatures on each floor during
a hot spell. During the 2 year monitoring
period the max internal temp. recorded was
26.4C on 19/06/05 when the ambient temp.
was 35.4C, a 9 degree depression with
virtually no energy input.
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31/07/2004 03:00
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06/08/2004 03:00
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08/08/2004 03:00
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Temperature [°C]
Ground Floor 1st Floor 2nd Floor 3rd Floor ambient
Source: Krausse B, Cook M & Lomas K (2007) Environmental performance of a
naturally ventilated city centre libraryBu, Energy and Buildings
Krausse et al (2007)’ Environmental performance of a naturally ventilated
City centre library’, Energy and Buildings,doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2007.02.010

TYPE B:
Results set into the context of UK Standard
air conditioned and naturally ventilated
buildings. There is an order of magnitude
saving in energy and cost. At this point
current renewable energy technologies could
realistically make a major contribution,
mopping up the residual load.

The Type B Strategy developed for
lightweight construction; a naturally
ventilated, passively cooled, deep plan
healthcare building, the Braunstone
Health and Social Care Centre, funded
through the New Deal for Communities
on a very deprived estate.

This represents the recovery of a very old
idea; the Roman Hypocaust at Lincoln,
G.Vertue, London 1740

The South elevation, secure, a huge
issue on this distressed estate, but
quite highly glazed, the terracotta pots
defend and shade all glazing,
providing privacy whilst enabling
views out.

Simulation of airflow through the belowslab
labyrinth, replacing the lost mass of
a lightweight pre-fabricated timber frame.
The labyrinth was halved in size by the
project managers in our absence.
Computational Fluid Dynamics

Main waiting area, August 2005,
first measured data. Internal
temperatures peak at 25C, 5.5 degrees
lower than peak ambient temperature of
30.5C

Measured performance of the labyrinth,
high stability, not exceeding 22.5C,
August 2005.

Acute
Hospital
Typical
Good Practice
Teaching
Hospital
Typical
Good Practice
Poor
Primary
Health Care
Typical
Good Practice
Cellular
Office
Typical
Good Practice
Fossil Fuel
Electricity
Total
Braunstone
Forecast
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
kWh/m 2
Comparison of Forecast Energy Use
with Published Benchmarks
This is projected to be an order of magnitude lower,
achieved through design with proprietary materials
and techniques.

Very deep plans for new PFI hospitals
driven by ferocious value-engineering of capital
and FM costs.
Our new DH funded project ‘Design strategy
for low energy ventilation and cooling of
health buildings’ is investigating the potential
for breaking into these plan types to achieve
more naturally conditioned environments in the
real context of cost, medical planning, infection
control…
.

Air is supplied at the perimeter into a
concrete plenum which benefits from
ground cooling. The air is tempered as
it enters the supply lightwell and again
as it enters each floor at low level.

Air is exhausted through alternating
lightwells and perimeter stacks.
Temperature and pressure
differences drive the flow. Fans are
shown at all exhaust terminations to
ensure that the air is always flowing
in the designed direction

Plan of typical quadrant showing
alternative supply and exhaust
lightwells arranged on an 8.4m square
grid.

Notional perspective section through
60m deep core component of the deep
mat plan. Patient rooms look out at
perimeter and into shallow planted
courtyards.

A full hospital plan, arranged on a
square 8.4m grid, giving a gross
internal floor area of 29,900sq.m
over four floors, very approximately
200 rooms.

Thick wall components contain supply
and exhaust ducts, and shade glazing.
Components are applied to south and
west facing elevations on the
perimeter and within courtyards. They
provide air distribution infrastructure
for both natural and mechanical
modes.

Type B+
The more intense situation of a full scale theatre
auditorium. The practice and its research
colleagues have designed eight full scale,
naturally ventilated, passively cooled auditoria.
Short CA, Cook MJ, (2005) ‘Design guidance for naturally
ventilated theatres’, BSERT 26/3

Before Willis Carrier made air conditioning a commercial
proposition in the 1920’s all theatres were naturally
ventilated and passively cooled. The lower diagram shows
why many actors dislike air conditioned theatres, they act
against an ’on-shore’ breeze, the atmosphere is lost.

The Queens Building, the School of
Engineering and Manufacture, De
Montfort University, 105,000sq.ft. of
naturally ventilated mechanical and
electronics labs., classrooms, offices,
shared research space and 2
amphitheatres.

Queens Building concourse, its
equivalent of the Infinite Corridor. The
auditoria volumes sit on pilotis to the left
side of the concourse.

One of the two full 135 degree fan
amphitheatres, continentally seating 187
within 7 rows. Acoustic absorbent is
traded against exposed thermal mass.

DAMTP water modelling, the first building
application, and actual heat load results.

Brokering the environmental design strategy
for the Queens Building: the final recipe of
thermal mass, structural form, relative cost
and time implications, free areas, internal
heat gains, comfort criteria, heating, passive
cooling, air flow, acoustic isolation,
absorption, natural light, solar gains, plan and
section geometry, sight lines…exercising this
panoramic judgement and leadership should
be once again the Architects’ contribution, but
they should be educated beyond the GP level
to perform it.

TYPE B+ applied to the problem of the
full scale theatre, a collection of theatres
in a noisy city centre; the Contact Theatre
in Manchester.

TYPE B+
Choisy type view of the various plena and
air supply routes within the Contact
Theatre.

‘
‘What a great idea…a green theatre for
young people.’ (The Daily Telegraph)

The main auditorium with side boxes and
acoustic wall panels

The failure of an interim design in the
wind tunnel at the University of Cardiff,
insufficient allowance for taller
neighbouring buildings stalls the airflows.

The press became excited at this
recovery of interest in the chimney, was
this ‘a new formal device’ ? The new
Parliamentary building exhibited some
rather modest examples.

How does Contact perform? A heat load
test; full house for two performances on a
typical summer day. The controls are
adjusted twice during the day, increasing
ventilation rates in response to the
intermittent high occupancies to actually
reduce temperatures during a performance.

Contact innovations. Bio-climatic design is iterative
but funding/industry process models are linear.
Contact Theatre – Monty
Sutrisna
Short CA, Barrett P, Dye A, Sutrisna P (2007) ‘Impacts of
value enginering on five Capital Arts projects’ Building
Research and Information 35/2 pp287-315.

Budget/cost variance for five contemporary projects set
against the standard risk management model.
Alan Short, Peter Barrett

The Garrick, Lichfield:
wholly naturally ventilated and
passively cooled main house for an
audience of 500 distributed
liberally on a steep parabolic rake
and a gallery.

The Garrick in Lichfield; prodigious
intakes to every orientation to make up
35 sq.m of free area.

Garrick: measured performance;
up to 12degC depression of peak
external temperatures in a heat wave.
Dark blue represents stalls, light blue the
gallery, brown the lighting gallery and
green, the base of the stacks.

Another approach, ‘mixing displacement
ventilation’, based on real-life
observations.

Contact Space 2; balanced air-flow in the
plenum beneath the acting square; the
tall silencer stacks climbing to the height
of the surrounding high rise buildings.

Air is clearly flowing down one of the Contact
stacks at various times, the regime constantly
changes, but overall performance is good. The
mixing of outgoing and incoming air, if configured
carefully, could save a lot of winter heating
energy, but how do you do it?
Source BPI Cambridge

A deliberate strategy to exploit this
unpredictable mixing regime. This has never
been attempted in practice, but maybe soon.

A Typology of Bio-climatic environmental
design strategies in Various Climates.
Type C: a heat island in a temperate
climate

Type C; Temperate but hotter, for example
A major city heat-island.
Hybrid: natural ventilation assisted by
down-draught cooling.
Variation in the urban heat island intensity across
London on 2 August 1999 at 02.00 hours.
Temperatures (K) are relative to the rural reference.
Source: Watkins et al. (2002)

The UCL School of Slavonic and
East European Studies, Bloomsbury
BDA ‘Public Building of the Year’ 2006, RIBA Award 2006,
CIBSE ‘Environmental Initiative of the Year 2006’.

A Humanities research engine.
SSEES building: third floor plan illustrating the
intended airflow pattern.
1 = Air supply via four opening windows on each side of
the light well, 2 = glazed partition with a 150mm gap top
and bottom, 3 = transfer ducts at low and high levels, 4 =
stacks embedded in the external façade, 5 = stair hall, a
full-height void to the ‘breathing parapet’, 6 = chemistry
building, 7 = street side physically separated from the rear
radiused area, 8 = exhaust stack dedicated to the lower
ground floor

The air supply lightwell, down-draught cooler
reflected in the glass lens at its base.

The essential apparatus.
SSEES building: abstracted cross-section to show
points of control on the airflow routes.
1 = Dampers or louvres, 2 = cooling coils, 3 = heating
coils

SSEES building: principal elevation to Taviton Street
indicating the low-level air intake and parapet
exhaust.
1 = ‘Breathing parapet’, 2 = vehicle access, 3 = exhaust stack to
the rear, 4 = exhaust stack for the third and fourth floors at the
front, 5 = openable window to ventilate the head of the light well,
6 = fresh air inlets to the plenum and the basement, 7 =
pedestrian access to the rear of building

The School of Slavonic and East European
Studies, Taviton Street elevation
SSEES building: cross-section south-west/north-east.

The perforate parapet to exhaust the stair plenum,
another kind of ‘ventoso’

An urban building in Polizzi Generosa,
Inland from Cefalu, Northern Sicily.

Climbing through the double façade which acts as
an exhaust air plenum.
SSEES building: cross-section south-west/north-east.

SSEES building: longitudinal section parallel to the
‘double façade’ indicating use of the stair hall as air
exhaust plenum.
1 = Intake to the plenum, 2 = exhaust from the
upper ground floor, 3 = exhaust from the first floor, 4
= exhaust from the second floor, 5 = third floor is not
connected into the double façade, 6 = ‘breathing
parapet’ exhaust void

The double façade which acts as an exhaust air plenum
and eases the tedium of library administration.

Winter-time ventilation strategy.
1 = Dampers at the intake, 2 = dampers and heating elements at the perimeter of the
light well base, 3 = fully glazed light well base, 4 = light well fills with warmed air, 5 =
air enters each floor through a bottom-hung opening window across a secondary heat
source, 6 = acoustically treated transfer ducts in deep partitions at high and low levels,
7 = first and second floor exits coupled, 8 = third and fourth floor exits coupled, 9 = fifth
floor dedicated vent stack, 10 = street-side spaces exhaust into the stair hall, double
façade, 11 = stair hall exhaust via the ‘breathing parapet’, 12 = third floor dedicated
exhaust, 13 = fourth floor dedicated exhaust, 14 = lower ground floor is exhausted by
a dedicated full height stack

Moving air across a deep plan whilst
maintaining acoustic privacy.

Mid-season ventilation strategy.
The big blow-through beloved of pre-PFI hospital
matrons.
1 = Intake dampers open at the light well base, 2 = intake dampers at the
light well head are open, 3 = light well fills with air at ambient temperature,
4 = air enters the floors at a low level, 5 = air exits via stacks driven by a
buoyancy effect, 6 = void between the inner and outer ethylene-tetraflouro-ethylene
layers continuously vented to remove solar gains

Moving air across a research floor and
through PI’s offices whilst maintaining
acoustic privacy, the key to large
cellularised nat-vent plan-making.

Summer ventilation strategy.
1 = Intake dampers at the light well head open, 2 = louvers open above the
cooling coils, 3 = light well acts as a reservoir of cooled air, 4 = bottomhung
windows opening out, 5 = acoustically treated transfer ducts in office
partitions, 6 = air exhausted via compartmentalized stacks, 7 = waste heat
from a chiller is dumped into stacks to promote buoyancy-driven flow, 8 =
stacks can open at the base of each substack to allow cooled exhaust air
to escape, 9 = street-side exhaust is below the level of (cool) air intake to
the light well

The down-draught cooler seen through the
glazed base of the atrium.

The cooler/rooflight encircled by stacks.

Cfd analysis of potential airflow patterns in
down-draught cooling mode, (IESD). The
model has stabilised and the stacks are
discharging happily into ambient air at 30degC.

Water modelling of the SSEES down-draught
cooling strategy at the BP Institute. Cooled
intake air is stalling at low level. Ambient
conditions warmer than exhaust.
Video can be viewed on the Science Museum antenna
gallery website:
www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/building/energy/131.asp

Stacks fire up but not in sequence.
The cooler fluid stalls.

Fig. 8 – Trace of internal & external temperatures – typical floor (2 nd )
As commissioning and fine tuning continue a better performance is evident. Internal
temperatures are up to 10 degrees lower than external temperatures. The
commissioning has highlighted that the air flows throughout the building are at least
as complex as suggested by the BP Institute.
1. Stability of internal temperature against external. Internal conditions fluctuate
approx. 2 degrees against approx. 16 degrees externally, 2. Effect of night cooling
the exposed internal structure – typically depressing the temperature by 2 degrees
for the start of the next day, 3. Typically 1 degree variation between front and back
sections of building, 4. Internal temperatures are depressed up to 10 degrees
during daytime.

Smoke pumped into the double cushion
wheel above is pulled down through the
cooling batteries as outside air cools on
contact and drops into the distributing
lightwell, rather faster than the models
predicted to the huge delight and relief of
the multi-disciplinary design team.

10 August 2007 testing; library second
floor temperatures depressed to below
23degC during deployment of downdraught
cooling as external temperatures
continue to rise to 28degC+

2004
Queens Building
Library (Coventry University)
SSEES
Heating
Cooling
Electricity
Air-conditioned standard typical (ECON 19)
Air-conditioned standard GP (ECON 19)
Naturally ventilated open-plan typical (ECON 19)
Naturally ventilated open-plan GP (ECON 19)
0.00 50.00 100.00 150.00 200.00 250.00 300.00 350.00
annual energy use [kWh/m 2 ]
Energy consumption
comparisons

A Typology of Bio-climatic environmental
design strategies in various climates.
Type D: Continental climate

Type D, continental climate;
hot humid summers, warm nights,
harsh winters, but significant, more
temperate, mid-season periods.
Hybrid : alternates between passive
and mechanical modes with basic
humidification/de-humidification.

Type D,
Hybrid : passive and mechanical modes with
humidification/de-humidification,
but can halve the energy consumed
compared to a US Standard Building

“The US has no preparedness for pain,
Europe loves pain”
Nick Butler, BP Group VP for Strategy
and Policy Development,
Cambridge Dec.06.
Mean monthly Chicago temperatures with 95 percentile range and acceptable operative temperatures –
standard and alternative method (ANSI/ASHRAE 2004)

Type D,
Hybrid : Alternates between passive
and mechanical modes with
humidification/de-humidification. Unbuilt
scheme, we want to build this somewhere.

Type D,
Hybrid : Alternates between passive
and mechanical modes with
humidification/de-humidification

Judson College, Elgin, Illinois
TYPE D Prototype
Location of building on the campus showing relative location of new
and existing buildings and detention ponds to assist sustainable
drainage scheme
1. New Library Building
2. Art, Design and Architecture wing (DADA)
3. Existing residence, Ohio Hall
4. Existing residence, Wilson Hall
5. Detention ponds to delay release of surface water into Tyler Creek and the Fox River

Judson University nearing
completion, its Fen landscape
taking shape.

Library Building, abstracted cross-section to show airflow routes, points of
control and positioning of thermal mass and insulation
1. Low level air intake sized to compensate
for loss of free area through insect mesh.
2. Air inlet plenum insulated from building
interior.
3. Air inlet with open hospital radiator behind
to provide reheat.
4. Air supply route to level one.
5. Lightwell and air supply plenum.
6. Acoustic attenuation in level 4 air supply
path.
7. Ventilated buffer space between air supply
plenum and exterior.
8. Extract air stacks from levels 1, 2 and 3
incorporated within façade construction.
9. Insulated plenum within depth of roof
construction.
10. Exhaust termination connected directly to
roof plenum, incorporating rooflight. Outlet
dampers behind belfry louvers.
11. Exhaust termination dedicated to level 4
incorporating rooflight.
12. Air handling plant.
13. Return air duct connects exhaust air
plenum to air handling plant.
14. Mechanical supply to air inlet plenum.
15. Air intake to cellular office with acoustic
attenuator box, damper and reheat.
High level air exhaust via attenuator box
to minimise cross talk between offices.

The central atrium June 2007, airflow testing in
progress, low level vents to all library floors
opening. The glass lenses top and bottom are
in place and sealed.

Lower plenum level plan
1. Air intake to DADA wing for natural and
mechanical modes.
2. Air rises to mezzanine platform at main
plenum level.
3. Mechanical air-handling plant.
4. Riser to bowtie classrooms for supply in all
modes.
5. Return air path from roof level air collection
plenum.
6. Supply route to riser ducts in DADA wing
façade.
7. Vertical supply routes within façade.
8. Supply to atrium.
9. Supply to level 1 studios.
10. Air intakes to library.
11. Insect mesh folded to increase available
free area.
12. Heating elements.
13. Risers to supply offices on level 2.
14. Mechanical supply to plenum from air
handling unit.
15. Supply to double façade distribution ducts
servicing level 2 offices and level 3
teaching rooms.
16. Glazed base of central supply atrium.
17. Supply to level 1.
18. Return air ducts.

Detailed library wall section, part plan and part elevation
1. Belfry louvre air intake.
2. Precast hollow core floor planks.
3. Precast wall panels, 3.07m (12") overall.
4. Deep façade, light steel frame holds shafts
(9), and deep window reveals (5).
5. Glazing set back into precast panel,
defended against solar gain by deep white
finish reveals.
6. Precast soffit to level 4.
7. Void of roof exhaust plenum.
8. Lightweight insulated roof deck.
9. Shaft houses air extract stacks.
Prefabricated connection to plenum at
eaves to ensure air-tightness at
vulnerable change in direction.

Level 2 plan
1. Supply air ducts embedded in façade.
2. Exhaust air ducts embedded in façade.
3. Return air duct from roof plenum.
4. Riser ducts supply classrooms.
5. Exhaust air ducts connected to roof level
plenum.
6. Central supply to library.

Long section through and part elevation of double façade to Art, Design and
Architecture wing (see section YY on Figure 12)
1. Supply for all modes from low level plenum
fed through openings in precast wall
panels.
2. Extract ducts to roof plenum fed via high
level openings in precast panels.
3. Void of roof plenum, forward section
collecting air from levels 1, 2, and 3.
4. Array of high and low level window
openings.
5. High level fixed window centrally located in
recess.
6. Low level openable windows.
7. Main entrance to green quad.

Southeasterly double façade under construction,
Balancing swale excavation in progress as part
of the sustainable drainage scheme, under the
eye of the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Mid-Season Operating Mode: The controls switch
the building into passive mode when external
temperatures rise above 6 degC,and moisture
content falls within 12g/kg and 0.3g/kg. Air flow
is naturally driven by internal heat gains.

Judson College, the animated roofscape.

Summer Operating Mode: the daytime cooling
set-point is 27 degC (80.6F), upper acceptable
moisture content set at 10g/kg, cooling is
switched off at 8.00pm, but night cooling
commences and by the following day spaces are
cooled to 26 degC (79F).

Smoke tests underway in the library, the smoke
is tracked through the stacks and the
intermediate floors checked for back flow.
Another team is monitoring the roof plenum and
stack terminations.

Smoke introduced at the main
intakes.

Energy demand [kWh]
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
Heating Load Fan Cooling Load
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Month of Year
US Standard Building
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Energy demand [Btu*10 6 ]
Energy demand [kWh]
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
Heating Load Fan Cooling Load
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Month of Year
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Energy demand [Btu*10 6 ]
Judson College Academic Centre
Comparison of monthly heating, cooling and
fan energy loads for US Standard Building
and Judson College.
Short CA, Lomas KL (2007) ‘Exploiting a hybrid environmental
design strategy in a US continental climate.’ BRI vol35, no.2

Annual energy cost [US$/ m 2 ]
5.00
4.00
3.00
2.00
1.00
0.00
Heating Cooling Fan
Judson Standard US (24) Standard US (26)
40
30
20
10
0
Annual energy cost [c/ft 2 ]
Comparison of predicted annual energy costs
For thermal conditioning for Judson College
US Standard(24) and slightly higher specification
US Standard(26).

7 Questions one hardly dare ask:
1. What does ‘Sustainability’ mean?
The Brundtland Declaration seems more than
adequate.
2. Is there really a Global Problem?
We are architects, not climate scientists, but the
evidence seems compelling.
3. How are buildings implicated?
To a surprising extent. Our discipline has been
most definitely incriminated.
4. Are we heading for a new Dark Age under
the pressures of political correctness? and
5. Is ‘sustainable’ design necessarily
primitive?
Emphatically not. There is a rich Architecture to be
invented, out of the rigour required, not despite it,
and it is going to be subject to different judgements.
6. Can one make an Architecture out
of ‘good’ environmental intentions?
No, as demonstrated clearly by early passive
buildings,‘goodness’ doesn’t negate formal naivety.
Bio-climatic Architecture is a difficult field and
demands more than General Practice skills. The
Department here is exceptionally well positioned
to deliver these, particularly with the introduction
in 2008 of our new Mphil/MArch, delivering research
level skills with the prospect of timely Registration.

7. So, is technology going to deal with the
problem?
It might, but ‘Design’ can achieve an order of magnitude
reduction in energy consumption and carbon emission,
coupled to smart sensors and controls. That is where our
interest in Technology lies first. We dread seeing more
glass boxes surrounded by windmills, what a lost
opportunity.
(Monsieur Robidas’ prediction of life in 1950,
drawn in 1892.)