Adaptive Building Envelope
Performative Water-Filled ETFE Cushions
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Overview
Abstract
Designing a multi-functional building envelope as an architectural façade, environmental interface and solar collector is a multi-objective exploration that should be solved through an integrated design strategy. The main research question is how the thermal and optical properties of the facade component can be improved to increase comfort, reduce energy demand and gain more solar energy.
This research evaluates different concepts to implement water inside a multi-layer ETFE cushion to make a dynamic envelope component. An air cavity in the multi-layer cushion serves as an insulation layer to control thermal conductivity while water can absorb solar energy (Infrared: 780-2500 nm) intelligently.
Inspired by the human skin and the blood circulation responding to heat and cold stress, in a comprehensive approach, every multi-layer cushion of this envelope has a great possibility of interacting dynamically between building elements and the environment. Regulating the thermal (U-value and SHGC) and visual (shading fraction) properties of the components would be complimented by a controlling pneumatic system to adjust the direction and the amount of heat flow by manipulating the shape and thickness of cavities for different climatic conditions.
Finally, with simulation results for a typical office building in Dubai, Tehran and Stuttgart, this paper demonstrates the efficiency of multi-layer ETFE cushion and water-filled ETFE cushion as intelligent dynamic system to reduce the energy demand and harvest solar radiation.
Authors
Abolfazl Ganji Kheybari
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Art and Architecture, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
fazel.ganji@gmail.com
Jochen Lam
Transsolar KlimaEngineering
jlam@transsolar.com
Keywords
Introduction
Active Façade and Sustainability
Facade systems, as one of the most complex elements of buildings, are largely responsible for both the energy-performance and overall aesthetic qualities of a building
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Background
Water Flow Glazing
The idea of using water as one of the best absorbers of solar energy (Otanicar, T.P., 2009) in glazing systems, has been evaluated in some projects under
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Method
Technical Challenges and Feasibility Study
Comparing a conventional facades e.g. a double glazing system (26.4 Kg/m2 or 5.41 lb/ft2) with the presented system with a 1cm water layer 10 Kg/m
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Conclusion
As shown in annual energy demands and annual performances diagrams (Figure 10-12), the performance of each configuration is highly dependent on the climate conditions. The full potential of the dynamic
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Future Work
While this paper has explained, the idea of using water in an active glazing system and evaluate the energy saving potential and of the system and its impact on providing
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Acknowledgements
This research project was done under the support of Transsolar Energietechnik GmbH. The authors really want to acknowledge the support of Raphael Lafargue for his critical view and Monika Lauster for her great effort to invest in cultural diversity and enhance the intercultural dialogue in Transsolar Academy.
Rights and Permissions
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