Video Source | The Architecture Gazette | Sustꓥinꓥble Snippets
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CapitaGreen is a 82,000 sq.m., 43-floor skyscraper in the Central Business District of Singapore1. The Video looks at its design for Sustainable Ventilation.
45 m1 tall Wind-Catchers atop the skyscraper are oriented towards the prevailing wind direction2. Designed to scoop winds at this elevation, they channel air down a core known as the ‘Cool Void’3. Air from the cool void spreads horizontally through the levels, reducing Air-Conditioning loads.
Read the whole article here–
Video Source:
The Architecture Gazette | Sustꓥinꓥble Snippets
Music Source:
“My Best Melody” catatau5 | Link
Data Sources:
This is Segment 4 of our Chain of posts focused on ‘Energy @ the Building Scale’.
[Extension of Part 4/5: The Red System (Energy), Singapore – Published: 28th May 2018]
Skyville@Dawson is a 111,106 sq.m., 48-storey1 public housing project by WOHA Architects in Queenstown, Singapore. It is one of two Build-To-Order (BTO) projects commissioned by Singapore’s Housing Development Board (HDB), as part of their “Remaking Our Heartland” initiative (the other being SkyTerrace@Dawson by SCDA Architects)4. This “housing-in-a-park” concept would show transferability in future projects and towns like – Waterway Terraces, Bidadari, Punggol Northshore, Tampines North6. It is the first housing development to be awarded the GreenMark Platinum Rating10. Skyville@Dawson’s Sustainable Design features including Passive Strategies are elaborated below-
(i) The Building is placed with its longer facades facing the North-South9 directions. This reduces exposure to the East and West directions, that are normally difficult to shade.
(i) 8 apartments in plan(as seen in Plan diagrams above), surround a courtyard. This cluster is repeated 2 more times, to create 3 sets of apartments enclosing courtyards. This configuration also provides self-shading, especially from low angle rays from the East and West directions (as seen in the Shadow Studies above).
(ii) In Elevation, 12 clusters form villages, each comprising of 80 apartments.
(iii) The apartment layouts are column and beam free4. This provides the possibility of 3 layouts for residents – reducing wastage, allowing flexibility for multiple functions, family size and the future.
(iv) For standardization, efficiency and to reduce wastage, only 5 window types2 have been used in the entire development.
(v) The design uses precast and prefabricated10 elements to avoid errors and reduce wastage. This feature could also contribute towards LEED BD+C v4 Credit – Construction and Demolition waste management.
(i) The individual apartments are approximately 11 meters across in width, thus applying the Unit Thick Principle. Apartments also have openings in all directions. They are thus naturally ventilated and day lit, reducing artificial cooling and lighting costs.
(i) The clustering arrangement around courtyards, and the repetition of this module linearly, enables horizontal air circulation.
(ii) Common areas (Lobbies, Corridors, Staircases) and Apartments are naturally ventilated. Many units have not installed Air-conditioning3.
(i) With minimal obstructions and the creation of Canyon like spaces, air moves vertically through the towers – accentuating the breezy atmosphere. The interaction of this air with greenery from sky gardens at intermediate levels, cools this air through evapotranspiration.
(i) ‘Sky Terraces’7 are located every 12 floors. These are designed as community spaces, where people can collect to interact with neighbors or simply visit to relax and enjoy the lush greenery.
(ii) A ‘Sky Park’7 on the roof has planters, hedges, and beautiful city views. Photovoltaics3 power the common area lighting.
(i) A 150 m long bio-swale (gently sloping ditch with specific plants) filters and treats site stormwater before discharging it into the city drainage system5. Another example of a bio-swale – water treatment and recycling loop can be seen in Kampung Admirality.
(ii) The site is an ungated3 community, with Public Parks and Amenities that cater to the residents as well as the general public.
(i) Monsoon windows8 on the facade can be kept open during rains, thus providing cool breeze without wind-blown rain entering the home. A similar more advanced Monsoon Window design is utilized in another high-rise residential building – 1 Moulmein Rise, Singapore.
(ii) The walls on the facade have horizontal and vertical sunbreakers5. Balconies or horizontal ledges9 are used to provide shading for openings.
(iii) Double-height verandas10 on the ground level provide pleasant public spaces overlooking the parks.
That’s all for today! We hope you enjoyed this segment. As always, we would love to hear your thoughts, suggestions, queries, opinions.
Thank you!
See you next week.
Credits:
Graphics : Selected graphics are produced as part of a team project for M.Sc. Integrated Sustainable Design at National University of Singapore (Building Semester – Stage 1 – Complex Living Systems). Group Members – Gajender Kumar Sharma, Aditi Bisen, Huang Hongbo, Zhao Yanming
Text: Aditi Bisen
References/ Additional Reading:
Sustainable Snippets
These faces of the building are difficult to shade, as they receive low angle rays from the rising and setting sun. Common shading features such as horizontal projections, usually fail in such situations. Our 3 case-studies explain methods to address these tricky areas of the building.
Credits:
Graphics : All graphics are produced as part of a team project for M.Sc. Integrated Sustainable Design at National University of Singapore (Building Semester – Stage 1 – Complex Living Systems). Group Members – Gajender Kumar Sharma, Aditi Bisen, Huang Hongbo, Zhao Yanming
Text: Aditi Bisen
This is Segment 3 of our Chain of posts focused on ‘Energy @ the Building Scale’.
[Extension of Part 4/5: The Red System (Energy), Singapore – Published: 28th May 2018]
We interrupt the ongoing Chain of posts on E@BS to introduce our ‘Q & A’ column.
Our segment on Cleantech One [published: June 18, 2018] left us with 2 questions. We address one of them today –
Water use can be optimized and maintenance can be reduced by adopting certain simple measures. Some of the following have been adopted by our case-studies, specially Park Royal Hotel [published June 25th, 2018]. These measures also help buildings gain points for LEED certification categories – Water Efficiency, Sustainable Sites.
Insects or pests can be attracted to areas of vegetation and water. While all insects are not harmful, and many are extremely helpful and necessary for the ecosystem; they may not always be welcome in an urban/ strictly controlled setting like that of a laboratory. Let’s look at some ways to deal with this issue –
Pests specially mosquitoes can be a dangerous problem around water features. Some steps that could be taken to guard against this are-
Another simple way is to choose plant species that naturally repel certain pests. This helps avoid the use of harmful insecticides and pesticides, that have other dire consequences. Some low maintenance species to choose from are –
References/ Additional Reading:
This is Segment 2 of our Chain of posts focused on ‘Energy @ the Building Scale’.
[Extension of Part 4/5: The Red System (Energy), Singapore – Published: 28th May 2018]
Park Royal at Pickering is a 7500 sq.m. Hotel in the thick of Singapore’s Central Business District, facing a now famous Hong Lim Park. The hotel has various sustainable features (elaborated below), that lead to approximately 30 per cent (f) energy savings in operation (using a conventional building of similar scale and functions as base case). Due to these features, it has received the GreenMark Platinum rating certification from Singapore’s Building Construction Authority.
This natural ventilation in humid Singapore conditions, provides relief to occupants. The breeze, coupled with shading measures, can improve thermal comfort conditions; thus reducing the need for artificial mechanical cooling.
Continue reading “E@BS Segment 2/7: Commercial – Park Royal Hotel”
This is Segment 2 of our Chain of posts focused on ‘Energy @ the Building Scale’.
[Extension of Part 4/5: The Red System (Energy), Singapore – Published: 28th May 2018]
This is Segment 1 of our Chain of posts focused on ‘Energy @ the Building Scale’.
[Extension of Part 4/5: The Red System (Energy), Singapore – Published: 28th May 2018]
Cleantech One is a 37,500 sq.m. BCA GreenMark Platinum certified Industrial building. It is a Jurong Town Corporation project that is part of the larger Cleantech Park, which is a 50 hectare site for clean technology activities such as R&D, test-bedding, prototyping. Cleantech One employs state-of-the-art Active technology features, but also integrates Passive design catering to its Climatic context (Singapore).
Singapore has a tropical rainforest climate, with temperatures rarely straying from 29-30 degrees Celsius. Humidity stays high throughout the year and there is regular and heavy precipitation. The effect of temperature can be reduced by strategic shading measures. Cleantech One uses proper orientation, green walls, planters, sky trellis. Humidity is addressed by increasing air movement to provide potential relief to occupants as seen below. These measures reduce dependence on mechanical cooling and thus help decrease Energy costs.
Continue reading “E@BS Segment 1/7: Industrial – Cleantech One”
This is Segment 1 of our Chain of posts focused on ‘Energy @ the Building Scale’.
[Extension of Part 4/5: The Red System (Energy), Singapore – Published: 28th May 2018]
Cleantech One is a 37,500 sq.m. BCA GreenMark Platinum certified Industrial building. It is a Jurong Town Corporation project that is part of the larger Cleantech Park, which is a 50 hectare site for clean technology activities such as R&D, test-bedding, prototyping. Cleantech One employs state-of-the-art Active technology features, but also integrates Passive design catering to its Climatic context (Singapore). Continue reading “E@BS 1/5: Industrial – Cleantech One”
This post is an Introduction, that leads to a chain of articles in the coming weeks, focusing on Energy @ the Building Scale. We felt this important scale merited further mention [an extension of ‘Part 4/5: The Red System (Energy), Singapore’ – Published: 28th May 2018]. These articles are also part of our effort to explore and possibly prove that ‘Passive strategies’ for Architecture are still vital for Energy efficiency and Sustainability in today’s world.
DPR’s Phoenix office cleverly combines passive strategies like Natural Ventilation and daylighting, with Active smart controls to create a Net Zero certified building that also acts as a Living Laboratory. Having achieved this in the harsh hot dry climate of the Sonoran desert, sprouts hope for Passive design.
This is part of a series of posts based on scripts, written for class presentations during our Masters in Integrated Sustainable Design at National University of Singapore.
The class had to analyse various complex systems in Singapore, as a precursor to the Design problem in Studio. The systems included are – Red (energy), Blue (Water), Green I (Biodiversity), Green II (Food) and Grey (Public Space).
The following posts elaborate on the Red System.
The 4 parts of the series till now outline the existing Energy system of Singapore – its timeline, characteristics, issues. We saw a Sankey diagram in Part 3/5 detailing existing flows and exchanges, while Part 4/5 elaborated on the System Structure at 3 scales.
This final part talks of an ‘After‘ Scenario where we propose a ‘Restructuring‘ to address issues and gaps – to improve self sufficiency and reduce emissions.
The issues at hand which create possible vulnerabilities are –
Continue reading “Part 5/5: The Red System (Energy), Singapore”
The Architecture Gazette 