2014_2015 k12esa_esm project brief 10 credits

Environmental Science for Architects 2.

Project Brief. September 2014

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K12ESA / K12ESM Environmental Science for Architects 2

Project Brief: September 2014. BArch and MEng Students Value: 10 Credits

Type: Individual Assignment

Introduction Linked to your main Autumn semester design studio project, your K12TSA assignment has asked you to chronicle, in a systematic manner both the process of tectonics design and its realisation in a series of detailed drawings. Ultimately, you are expected to demonstrate an understanding of the underlying structural and constructional aspects of design, these informed (amongst other things) by materiality, water / weatherproofing and thermal considerations. The brief for Environmental Sciences for Architects 2 builds upon this Tectonics (and Design Studio) assignment, focusing on the thermal behaviour of your buildings envelope and the technologies and services that may be available to you in providing a comfortable environment for occupants. As with the Tectonics assignment, the process of design development and its realisation in a final design product is absolutely essential. Ultimately we would like you to take your Tectonics and Design Studio submissions and begin to explore their thermal performance in a rigorous manner. As with your Tectonics exercise, this undoubtedly will involve revisiting your proposal, assess its performance and through further iterations converge on a solution / solutions that result in a strongly performing envelope (from a thermal behavior perspective). From this development process you will be able to identify appropriate technologies / strategies / services that can be used to provide heat and / or coolth to your buildings. Note: this is an individual assignment. Whilst it is appreciated that there may be some overlaps in project work (for example with the South Africa unit), it is essential that the work presented for this project is individual and is not common with people who you may be working with! Aims and Objectives The primary aim of this ESA/ESM submission therefore is for you to demonstrate:

an ability to set clear expectations / aspirations for your envelope design within the context of current best practice (such as those outlined within the various standards and regulations that govern the thermal performance of buildings);



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an ability to develop a series of strategies that are appropriate for both the prevailing climate and occupant group;

an understanding of how the process of materials selection, configuration and final detailing affects heat flowing both in to and out of your buildings envelope (including envelope heat transfer, ventilation, solar gains, internal and metabolic gains and so on);

an ability to rigorously account for these flows, assess their relative importance and explore them in detail using a range of analytical and technical techniques;

an ability to reflect critically on the decisions you have taken in designing your envelope and compare them with current best practice;

an ability to evolve your solutions in order to improve their thermal performance whilst appreciating the other aspects that govern their design;

an ability to identify appropriate systems / technologies / services that, where applicable, can help ensure the building is comfortable for its occupants whilst minimizing overall energy consumption and carbon emissions.

The Brief Quite simply, you will take the work you are doing / have done for both Tectonics and main Design Studio housing / South Africa projects and focus in on its thermal performance. You will show that you have / can develop a building envelope that satisfies key performative requirements, namely (a) minimising excessive heat loss or gains and (b) maximizing beneficial gains. You will show that you understand the needs of the occupant and the driving forces that will affect the performance of the building overall including the prevailing climate and how the building is programmed / intended to run. Finally you will demonstrate that you can, where appropriate, propose a suitable servicing strategy for the building using appropriate technologies / systems. The assignment focuses primarily on your core envelope elements; the walls, windows, roof, floor, ceiling, doors etc. and expects you to demonstrate that you know how to design and / or incorporate them properly into an appropriate envelope specification where emphasis is on their thermal behaviour. Key considerations MUST include:

Bespoke elements: How their materiality and configuration have been selected / designed to minimise excessive heat losses or gains. As such you will be expected to look critically at issues including appropriate materials selection (for example basic materials properties such as their conductivities, resistivities, thicknesses and so on), their configuration (including issues such as structural and geometric bridging, thermal mass and so on) and their realization to form a coherent, high performance envelope that suits the context within which they are operating;

Proprietary / off the shelf elements: The rationale behind their selection (e.g. with glazing you have numerous considerations including heat loss, solar gains, daylighting and so on), their role within the envelope and so on;

Air movement / ventilation. How ventilation is controlled (adventitious / purpose provided), how you design in appropriate strategies and how you propose to design out unwanted ventilation paths through the envelope;

Benchmarking. How your envelope responds to the requirements outlined within current / appropriate regulations / legislation, the components in that envelope that contribute the most to meeting those targets, and the components of the envelope that may be subject to redesign;

Lifecycle and product selection. That your envelope is designed in a manner that respects wider environmental issues (such as embodied energy of materials, recyclability and so on).



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To perform such an analysis you need to understand the numerous factors that may impact on the design of your envelope and the way it is operated. As such you need to look closely at context including issues such as user needs / expectations (including thermal comfort), how the building is intended to be operated, the prevailing climate, resource availability and so on. Finally the lecture series will have introduced numerous ways in which we provide energy to buildings for the purposes of heating and cooling. Whilst we do not expect you to explore this part in significant detail, we do expect you to propose servicing strategies that seek to ensure that the occupant is as comfortable as possible whilst minimizing overall energy consumption / carbon emissions. Demonstrating Performance As is the theme of the lecture series, the rigorous demonstration (quantification) of performance is key, not only as a means to demonstrate compliance with the various regulations / standards currently in operation, but more importantly as a way to help you evolve your design solution. If for example you have designed a wall to meet the basic elemental u-value requirements from Approved Document L, no doubt you can improve its thermal performance through alternative material selection, changes to construction type / sequencing and so on thus striving to achieve best practice. As such you need to perform the necessary calculations and benchmark them against your performative targets (such as PassivHaus). If you are proposing air tightness as being core to your design, you must clearly demonstrate how this is achieved across a range of building components / junctions / intersections etc to ensure that the building envelope is not perforated unnecessarily whilst additionally demonstrate how your building will be ventilated. All too often you will find that your proposed solution may not meet your performative targets (or indeed fail on other fronts such as structural, water tightness, air tightness, aesthetics and so on) and require further iterations. Eventually, through a process of iteration and testing (e.g. calculation) you will converge upon a solution (or solutions) that, in the main, fulfills your requirements. This process of iteration (design evolution) and testing is key and must be core to your submission. It must be noted however that it is not acceptable at this stage for you to use tools such as Ecotect in arriving at these solutions. By performing the necessary calculations manually (and exploring your design using graphical techniques), you begin to understand the importance of key elements in the design of the envelope and how they contribute to its thermal performance. As such any attempt to use packages such as Ecotect in this submission will result in an automatic fail of the assignment. You will be introduced to such packages at some point in your studies but the aim for now is for you to understand the underlying principles, which such software utilises, and be able to quantify your buildings performance manually. Critical Appraisal Iteration and testing (sometimes known as analysis, synthesis and appraisal) is key but is best realized through a process of critical appraisal and reflection. In his book, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action, Donald Schon refers to the need to continuously reflect on your actions during the design process. Essentially this boils down to some simple questions; What am I doing? Why am I doing it? What are the impact of my decisions / actions? What am I going to do about it? How am I going to take it forward? and is exceptionally important when dealing with the design of buildings. Such critical appraisal and reflection is core to the analysis/synthesis/appraisal paradigm where you do something, look at it closely (e.g. through rule of thumb, calculation etc), make an assumption whether it is beneficial or not (based on your investigation) and iterate it into a further solution.



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To help frame this within context here are two examples. (1 Your site is located in South Africa and your client wants you to design a kindergarten. You specify an uninsulated timber framed tin roof as a covering for the building as this is a common and readily available building material in the region. You look at the climate data set and you realize that you have large amounts of solar radiation falling on this roof for quite a significant part of the year. You look at who is occupying this kindergarten and what they are doing and realize that you have teachers and young children under this roof. How will the roof impact on them, their thermal comfort, their learning, their health and wellbeing? The incident solar radiation will probably result in the tin roof heating up quite significantly. If the roof is painted black it will absorb a significant amount of solar radiation and re-radiate it into the space below thus possibly overheating the space (and the occupants). You may choose to naturally ventilate the space but the radiant field for the roof may be so large and the external temperature may be so high that it is difficult providing any comfort or local cooling to the occupants. So you may come to the conclusion that a black painted tin roof is not ideal so you choose to paint it white (or use some kind of solar reflective paint). Your assumption here is that it will act as a reflective insulation layer and help reflect some of the solar radiation back to the atmosphere. Your roof will probably not absorb as much heat but it will still potentially get quite hot. What can you do? You could consider ventilating the roof using either wind driven or stack processes. So any excess heat accumulating under the roof can be ventilated out at roof level. You may still be left with a high radiant field below, which might induce local thermal discomfort (due to thermal asymmetry). You look again at the climate data and find that the area is subject to monsoon like conditions at certain times of the day and year. The purpose of the space below is to educate but how can a teacher teach when torrential rain is hitting this roof and the noise below is interfering with the childrens ability to listen to him or her speak. What can you do?????? How does your design move on from this? (2) You are modifying an existing building therefore the footprint of the building is fixed. You are turning this building into a series of small apartments therefore part of your strategy is to minimise your surface area to volume ratio and as such reduce the amount of heat you could lose from the envelope (such as you would do in high rise or terraced house design). You set yourself a set of benchmark u-values to meet the aspirations outlined in the PassivHaus standard. You decide to start looking closely at your glazing to opaque element ratio as well as glazing specification (daylight transmittance, solar transmittance etc) in the envelope to ensure that you have good daylighting within your apartments and perform a series of calculations on natural ventilation to ensure that you have good air quality also (although PassivHaus does rely on MVHR systems). Following this you perform some quick solar gains calculations based on available data to see what beneficial gains you might get. Moving on, you concentrate on the materials that comprise the faade of the building and choose mineral wool for your insulation layer. You design your faade and realize that you will need so much insulation in the walls to achieve the PassivHaus benchmark that you have significantly reduced your available floor space in your apartments. This affects the feeling of space in the apartment and its rentable / saleable value. In response you trawl databases and websites for high performance insulants and select one that has a conductivity of 0.02 W/mK as opposed to mineral wools 0.04 W/mK. As such you can halve the wall thickness therefore claim back some usable floor area. Research however shows that this insulation product needs to be specified and installed in a very particular way so as to maintain its thermal properties (as is common with most high performance envelopes) therefore detailing becomes exceptionally important. You need to minimize the potential of compromising the thermal behavior of the envelope through poor detailing so you look closely at thermal bridging and ensure that all junctions are detailed properly. From this you iterate it into the next solution and perform the necessary calculations. However when you look at the performance of the faade overall (both opaque and



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transparent elements) you notice that your area-weighted u-value is quite high, this due to both the area and specification of the glazing elements. What do you do? How do you ensure that you receive adequate daylighting (if you dont have adequate daylighting you will need to turn your lights on and this will require energy. It will also potentially feel quite dark and gloomy in your space). How do you ensure that you receive adequate solar gains (these are giving you free heat when you need it). How do you ensure that you maintain adequate air quality? What can you do????? How does your design move on from this? The point here is one of critical reflection during the design process, where you are reflecting continuously on the decisions you are taking, appreciating their impact at various levels and doing so in a manner that is rigorous. As you evolve your solution you become more confident that your solution(s) is/are robust. This is key to the success of this exercise that you can take design ideas, explore their impact, perform the necessary (appropriate) calculations, learn from them and iterate them into the next solution. It is also important that you make this critical reflection process explicit in your submission. The Assignment Structured in a similar manner to your tectonics assignment, this assignment contains four core phases: Phase 1: Statement of Intent [2 x A3 sheets. Maximum 500 words supported by appropriate tables, images, analyses etc.]. The statement of intent is an important document and is used to outline your aspirations / motivations for your project. It should be noted that these are your preliminary thoughts and will no doubt mature as the project evolves. As such it will contain:

1. Targets / Benchmarks: Some idea of what it is you are trying to achieve, and more specifically some of the targets you are trying to achieve. So for example if you say you are trying to design a building that tries to embody some of the principles associated with PassivHaus, then you should clearly articulate which aspects of this standard you are interested in and the targets you propose to set yourself.

2. Context. The context and challenges within which your building sits. As has been discussed, issues such as exposure to the prevailing climate (wind, rain, sun, etc), user expectations and so on can fundamentally affect the performance of your building. A systematic and targeted (i.e. relevant) analysis of your site and where appropriate client is therefore invaluable.

3. Precedent. There is a wealth of information available to you that can help inform the thermal design of your building (much of this is highlighted in the recommended reading for the module). This may come in the form of construction details, analyses of other buildings (focused case studies) etc. Your statement of intent should therefore seek to analyse these to understand how they work, what contributes to their thermal behaviour and so on. Note we are not interested in calculations here this is about you demonstrating an intuitive appreciation for how things work.

Phase 2: Design Development [4 x A3 sheets. Maximum 750 words supported by appropriate tables, calculations, images/drawings etc]. The manner in which you have evolved your envelope design (walls, floor, roof, windows doors etc) is very important as it demonstrates the design development process. As such you should demonstrate how the thermal considerations / behaviour of your envelope is / has evolved at KEY stages in this design development phase. In other words, you should be refining your ideas and in so doing using the knowledge



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gained from the Environmental Science lecture series in helping with this process. It is expected that you will begin to clearly articulate issues such as materials properties / specifications, insulation, thermal mass, air tightness / ventilation strategies / managing gains and so on during this phase of the assignment. One would also expect that you begin to consider any servicing requirements of your building at this stage. It is also expected that you will perform at a basic level some of the calculations that will help you develop your envelope solution (e.g. basic u-values, solar gain thus helping with window sizing, etc). You should be reflecting on the factors / aspirations outlined within your statement of intent and in so doing begin to develop a critical analysis of your project, the decisions you have taken that appear to work well, those not so well and those that will be subject to change / modification etc. Please note that this is about considered design development whilst we do expect a high degree of rigour, there is no need to perform highly intricate calculations of your envelope at this stage. Please dont forget the importance of rule of thumb during design development it really is useful in identifying strategies that may work and those that are ultimately implausible. Phase 3: Design Reflection [2 x A3 sheets. Maximum 500 words supported by appropriate tables, calculations, images/drawings etc.]. The third phase of the Environmental Sciences submission is to reflect on your project to date and do so in a critical and rigorous manner. By this point your project will have been reviewed as part of the Design Studio process and you will also have submitted work for Tectonics. Importantly you will also have made most of your critical decisions by this stage therefore you will be in a position to self reflect on what you have done thus far. This reflection stage therefore expects you to clearly document this reflection process from the perspective of the thermal behaviour / performance of your design. You may find that your studio reviews have highlighted certain issues to be aware of therefore requiring a revisit of either your initial design aspirations or of your design itself. You will probably want a more in-depth understanding of the thermal behavior of your building and this is an ideal time to reflect critically on what you have done to date and how this can be taken forward into a final design solution. For example you may have identified issues with thermal bridging, with your ventilation strategy, with solar gains etc. which require further systematic development / evaluation / calculation before finalizing them. This reflection stage is therefore your chance to seek to understand what needs to be done before your thermal design is finalized. Phase 4: Final Design [4 x A3 sheets. Maximum 1000 words supported by appropriate tables, calculations, images/drawings etc]. Having reflected on your project, this final phase asks you to take two core parts of your envelope and explore their thermal behaviour in a rigorous and critical manner. Whereas the development phase has sought to use basic calculations for your envelope design, this section sees you applying your knowledge into finalizing this design and ultimately benchmarking it against your statement of intent that you set in phase 1. You may choose for example to explore both a wall and a roof, roof and a floor etc but your choice here should be considered carefully. You may consider for example using your Heat Loss (Gain) Coefficients, areas and u-values as a means of identifying those areas that need further exploration. It should be noted that to simply re-specify an alternative window product is not enough here. If you choose to do something like this, you have to demonstrate that you have considered the window unit in its entirety (e.g. if we move from double to triple glazed units, not only will it have an effect on the u-value of the window element but also on its solar transmittance, daylight transmittance, ventilation performance etc).



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Submission Requirements The exact contents of the 12 x A3 sheets are entirely up to you. However they need to clearly demonstrate a systematic, thorough and rigorous approach to design development. Whilst it is appreciated that both Environmental Science and Tectonics assignments overlap in key places, you must ensure that the work you present for both is distinct; that is, work presented for one assignment cannot attract credits for the other (no double counting of marks). That is not to say however that the drawings you present for your tectonics assignment cannot be presented for the Environmental Science assignment as they are core to both, however how you choose to notate and analyse such drawings is key. Additionally this is an individual assignment and any projects that show significant commonalities with colleagues undertaking the project will be investigated under the Universitys academic misconduct policy! It is expected that you will use the 12 x A3 pages and the associated word count wisely. Calculations and tables do not form part of this word count and calculations workings must be demonstrated where appropriate. You should use the word count as the narrative that critically explores the results of your endeavours (the critical reflection process). You will be expected to present several drawings outlining your construction please ensure that these are fully annotated and dimensioned however please also note that we do not expect you to produce fully scaled drawings for this assignment (in the case of phases 2 and 3 you are expected to use what you have produced as part of tectonics.in the case of phase 4 simple sketch drawings of your envelope will suffice). It should be noted that a common mistake from previous cohorts is to not provide appropriate graphical evidence. If you are performing u-value calculations then please ensure you supply a drawing of the construction sequence. If you are looking at solar gains then ensure that you at least have a plan that shows orientation, external environment etc. Please DO NOT explain the process of calculation.use the words to critique your analysis / results! Also do not forget that you have set yourself targets in phase 1 of the assignment, that these will possibly evolve / change, and that you must remember to refer back to / reflect on them at all stages in the assignment. Please ensure that the following information is contained on the title page of your submission:

Surname, Forename, Student ID Programme (BArch or MEng) Unit Number [in the case of the South Africa Unit please clearly identify that

you are part of this unit] In addition, ensure that each section (phase) is clearly identified, this supplemented with a contents page at the beginning of the document. Your submission must be accompanied by an electronic version of the work submitted on CD / DVD. This electronic version must be a single PDF file no greater than 20Mb in size. Additionally you will be required to upload a version of this to Moodle / Turnitin by the deadline. Please name the file in the following convention SURNAME_FORENAME_STUDENT ID Submission Dates

Full Submission Deadline: Monday 19th January 2015. 3:00pm. ESLC. 12 x A3 sheets - printed and bound including Statement of Intent. 1 x CD / DVD copy. Electronic submissions also to be uploaded to Moodle / Turnitin.



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Assessment Criteria As mentioned above, the project is structured as four interrelated components namely a statement of intent, design development, design reflection and design resolution / finalisation. You will be assessed therefore on how well you can identify, rigorously explore and critically reflect upon the design of your projects envelope. Remember that the envelope is key in modifying the prevailing climate and is essential in helping to determine occupant comfort within the building. It modifies the flow of energy through opaque elements, through transparent elements and of course through openings. Additionally, you will be assessed on your ability to identify appropriate technologies / systems / services that work in tandem with your envelope strategy / strategies in order to provide a comfortable environment for your buildings occupants. It may be that you do not need additional technologies / systems to provide comfort and if this is the case then you must provide justification as to why you have not provided such systems. To successfully undertake this project you will need to understand the specifics of and interrelationships between different components and how they affect energy flows. You will be expected to look critically at heat transfer through the key parts of the envelope (opaque, transparent etc), which parts of the envelope may be causing you issues (such as thermal bridging etc), how your building is ventilated, how you gain (or harvest) heat, how you control excessive gain and so on. You will be expected to demonstrate that you understand which parts of your envelope may give rise to issues (e.g. excessive heat loss or gains), how you can tackle these and so on. And of course you will be expected to make an informed decision as to appropriate systems / technologies that can be implemented to provide comfortable conditions for the occupants of your building. Importantly you will be expected to demonstrate that you have set yourself some goals / challenges from the outset of the project that you will be working towards. Finally you will be expected to show that you can resolve key issues in a rigorous manner. By rigorously exploring your building from individual component to full system level, you may identify strengths and shortcomings that could further improve its performance. Specifically you will be assessed on:

1 your ability to identify options available to you and implement these within an evolving design process

2 your ability to rigorously explore these using for example calculation, rule of thumb and so on and reflect upon them within the wider context of the buildings design (e.g. the relationship between solar gains, ventilation and fabric performance, liveability, best practice, heating and cooling systems etc)

3 your ability to clearly and critically explain how these work and how they influence each other

4 your ability to identify key areas for improvement or further exploration, once again in a manner consistent with criteria 1 to 3

5 your ability to identify benchmarks and exemplars of good practice and explore the performance of your envelope within this wider context (e.g. Code for Sustainable Homes, BREEAM, SAP, PassivHaus, Approved Document L, etc)

6 your ability to communicate your ideas in a legible, coherent, relevant and elegant manner,

7 your ability to critically appraise (or reflect on) your own work (mature reflection on the strong and weak aspects of design will be valued equally).

Learning Outcomes On successful completion of this assignment, students will demonstrate:



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1. an understanding of the heat/energy flows that take place within buildings and how they affect the operation of a building, its energy consumption (and resultant carbon emissions) and occupant comfort/satisfaction

2. an ability to account for these flows in a rigorous manner, assess their relative importance, explore them in detail and reflect critically on them using a range of analytical, technical and observational tools and techniques

3. an awareness of the low-energy/energy efficient technologies/ systems/ approaches and how they may help offset the energy /carbon demands associated with these flows

4. an ability to identify synergies between the flows and the technologies/systems/approaches in a manner that is coherent, rigorous and relevant to the context within which they sit

5. an ability to perform a basic energy/carbon audit of a building that considers carefully points 1 to 4 of these learning outcomes

6. organisation skills and an ability to manage time carefully 7. an ability to interpret, manage, manipulate and communicate complex

and interrelated information in a manner that is appropriate, rigorous, creative and legible.

Marking Guide The following provides guidance as to what is expected for each marks band. Letter Grade

Marks Equivalent

Description

A+ 78+ Excellent: As with very good with consistent evidence of substantial originality, creativity and insight in identifying, generating and communicating appropriate environmental science ideas which have been rigorously and critically appraised with respect to the problem, solution and overall implications on the design typology and other strategies.

A 75 A- 72 Very good: As with good with frequent evidence of insight into the process and

demonstrates a clear and systematic approach to defining, analysing and generating a response that is appropriate to the typology. Information / evidence presented is critical, rigorous and reflective and of a level and style appropriate to the discipline and the target audience.

B+ 68 B 65 Good: Demonstrates a robust understanding of the fundamental concepts

surrounding environmental science and shows a high degree of ability in exploring and applying these concepts. Work convincingly presents a case, provides coherent justification for the strategies and critically reflects on its strengths, weaknesses and relationships with other strategies at play. Information is communicated clearly.

B- 62 C+ 58 Adequate: Demonstrates an adequate understanding and application of

fundamental environmental science concepts. Develops an argument and provides acceptable, critical and reflective justification for the strategies presented. Communicates information and ideas adequately to the target audience.

C 55 C- 52 Comfortable Pass: Demonstrates some understanding and application of

fundamental environmental science concepts. Develops an argument and provides some acceptable critical and reflective justification for the strategies presented. Can communicate information and ideas to the target audience.

D+ 48 D 45 Bare Pass: Demonstrates a superficial, partial or slightly faulty understanding of

environmental science and its exploration. Demonstrates a limited ability to critically reflect on the decisions taken. Aspects of a students argument are underdeveloped and / or unsupported. Information is communicated inconsistently and with a lack of clarity.

D- 42



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F 38 Fail (minor improvements): Demonstrates an awareness of environmental science but with deficiencies in understanding and exploring these. Little evidence of critical or reflective appraisal and workings are factually inconsistent Communication of information or ideas is partially confused or incomplete.

F- 32 X 25 Fail (major improvements): Demonstrates clear deficiencies in understanding,

applying or communicating the most basic of environmental science strategies. Work shows a complete lack of rigour. Does not meet most or all of the basic assessment criteria to pass.

X- 15 Z 0 DNS DNS Did not submit

Words of Advice

1. Design development. It is advisable for you to chronicle your design development as you progress. A considerable part of this assignment rests on the work you do up to your studio / tectonics review in December. You can easily complete this as you go along (do not leave it to the last minute!).

2. Aspiration. Dont forget what it is that you have set out to achieve and make sure you relate back to this at all stages. You should be ambitious from the outset of your project and seek to produce solutions that exceed minimum requirements.

3. Scope. The brief clearly expects you to demonstrate that you know how your envelope comes together and how it informs heat / energy transfer in the building. As such you need to tackle walls, windows, doors, floors, ceilings, roofs etc and in so doing look at bespoke elements, proprietary elements, ventilation, issues such as solar gain and so on.

4. Further reading. The lectures can only cover so much material and explicit guidance is made to relevant documentation (such as CIBSE Guide A). It is important that you familiarise yourself with the further reading as it will provide answers to many of your problems. An extensive reading list containing essential and recommended reading is available on Moodle.

5. Sketches. These are exceptionally important and help us establish the context for your work

6. Calculations. To be used as a way of informing the design process. Provide workings where appropriate.

7. Critical reflection. Ensure that whatever you do is critically appraised. Notes for the South Africa Unit It is important that you understand the climate within which your building sits as this presents some interesting challenges for you. One challenge may be air tightness is this desirable or necessary in this climate? If you are relying on natural ventilation to cool the occupants / building during warm periods then air tightness becomes less of an important issue. However if you plan to mechanically cool the building then air tightness does of course become in issue (you dont want to be cooling down unwanted hot air). If during the winter months you are entering a heating regime then once again air tightness does become an issue (you dont want to be heating up unwanted cold air). A similar debate can take place when looking at insulation (and different insulation types including reflective insulation). With respect to performance targets, it is important that you reflect on your design properly. It is appreciated that the context within which your building sits may not necessarily square with the performance targets outlined within UK and European regulations however it is important to clearly outline yourself what your performance targets (aspirations) are based on the context within which your building sits. You may find these within S.A. regulations for example, or in building exemplars from the



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region. You must remember that your object is to keep your occupants cool when it is warm and warm when it is cool so what does your envelope need to do in order to achieve this? From this you will be able to identify clear targets from which your design will evolve and the servicing requirements needed to keep your occupants comfortable.

Peter Rutherford & Robin Wilson. September 2014

2014_2015 k12esa_esm project brief 10 credits

Documents

envelope design

process of tectonics

design studio assignment

buildings envelope

tectonics assignment

project brief

process of design development

design studio submissions