Isandro Gutierrez MalikHVAC Floor View:
Space Schedule Requirements:
3D View:
Overall HVAC system strategy:
My approach was cautious of both the surrounding environment (a hot climate in Sao Paulo Brazil) and the exterior facade of my building. A regret of mine is having such a dependency on a large glass storefront wall for visual design as it created an incredibly intense cooling load for many of my spaces. As outlined in the space schedule, there were dozens of air terminals in a single floor and on a second go around I would certainly go for a simpler shape to reduce this requirement. I opted for air ventilated cooling and creating a system of 3 primary ducts that could cover an entire floor. The ducts were split based on certain areas in direct sunlight, collections of educational + office rooms, and the main exhibit line as well as the connected café.
Cooling strategy and implementation:
To tackle the cooling strategy I first created space zones that could be used for HVAC and calculated the desired heating and cooling loads. I specified the room type and general occupancy to reach an accurate measurement. I was quite surprised by the loads but after talking with several peers and my TA, we decided that it was likely due to my building form and heavy glass to wall ratio. With the loads in mind, the space schedule became the backbone for the design approach. I weighed the room properties of each relative zone and split them up into 3 areas for 3 primary ducts. If I had more time, I definitely would have liked to play around with a passive cooling design. Radiant cooling systems might work great in Brazil’s dry climate so I would have tried something like that. In addition, the entire idea of the circular building shape and open air 3rd floor was to create a stacked ventilation passive cooling effect. I didn’t have the bandwidth to designate this vent system inside the building, but the overall structure would allow for its implementation.
HVAC Challenges:
The placing of the HVAC system was incredibly frustrating. I found that the elevation of my parts was constantly changing, creating weird heights for the duct work and air terminals. I’m not sure what would make certain design elements reset to a default height (of 0 ft) but it happened quite frequently. I redid the first floor system many times struggling with this and also finding a good 3D viewpoint to assess my progress. The other challenge was fitting in so many air terminals in such small spaces. Completing the HVAC system however did tell me a great deal about the energy requirements and provided some constructive feedback on my building form.