For my research center, I have picked Jasper Ridge to be the location. Specifically on the western side of Searsville Lake. This location was picked based on view, shading, and accessibility. In the picture below, the center would be at this high point on the lake with tree shading in the back. Hopefully, the shading and lake side will offload cooling in the summer. Also, the facility will be locate close to one of the main roads. It is secluded within the woods but still accessible to the public.
Site Exploration
The climate in Stanford, CA is temperate, and from the temperate range chart temperatures rise in the summer and lower in the winter. The center should be designed for 40-80 F climate conditions. In the winter, design priorities should be insulation, reducing infiltration, and passive solar. For the summer, we should design for shading and natural ventilation.
In the Psychrometric chart, internal heat gain has the biggest influence on indoor comfort levels. After internal heat gain, heating and passive solar direct gain has a large impact. This means we must pay special attention to the building is oriented and how big the south facing windows are. Because the building is reliant on passive solar direct gains, energy efficient designs can be easily implemented.
A special attention should be paid to the sky cover range chart. Since our facility will be using PV panels to get energy, seeing when it is the cloudiest helps to prepare. Annually, the sky is 20-80% covered with clouds, and March has the highest percentage.
Test 1: Curved Geometry
- The first design is incorporating organic shapes and curvatures. It has space separation which means we can designate private and research spaces. The upper curved line represents a viewing deck that will installed over the lake. This is to help reach the other parts of the building without walking through the entire building. I wanted to explore how using curves spaces can help the building blend into the environment.
This model has 380,000 kWh/Year with annual energy savings of $57,000. As predicted, a majority of the solar insolation is on the roof of the building. The curved sides provides a shading to the walls of the big circle.
Test 2: Angular Design
- This design is meant to be a more traditional space with an angular shape. The U shaped building would allow for an outdoor courtyard in the middle. There is circular joint on one end and that would be for a view of the lake. I thought adding slanted surfaces would give the building an interesting look. Lastly, the two wings provide privacy for research with most of the interesting architecture being in the center.
The building has a PV energy production of 260,000 kWh/year and annual saving of $40,000. The solar potential of the building is smaller than the first design. I was surprised by this finding because I thought the slanted roof would give it more of an advantage. The lip on the roof of the first design probably gave it an advantage.
Insight Energy Performance
Above is the preliminary insight analysis of each building. Model 1 has a smaller cost per year than Model 2.
Model 1:
For model 1, I adjusted the operating schedule and surface coverage to reduce the annual energy cost. The operating hours were reduce to 12 hours and the maximum surface coverage only allowed for 75% use. This was picked to allow for a green space on the roof. After making these changes, the model cost reduced by $7/m^2/yr.
Model 2:
For model 2, I change the operating schedule and surface coverage. These were picked because it seem to have the largest slope. This reduced the cost by $9/m^2/yr.
Decision:
Model 1 had decreased by $4 from the first scenario and Model 2 had decreased by $5. Despite Model 2 decreasing the most, Model 1 was picked because it had the lowest cost overall. Model 1 will be picked to base the final design off of because the curved edges allowed for it to use less energy while have a lot of roof surface area.
Important Factors:
Architecture 2030: To reach the Architecture 2030 goals, the plug load and lighting efficiency and operating schedule had the biggest influence. The building would have to have a plug load efficiency of 10.76 W/m^2 to reduce the cost by $1.56/m^2 annually. Additionally, the lighting efficiency need to be adjusted in the range of 11.8 - 7.53 W/m^2. Finally, the operating hours of the facility would have to be between 12 hr every 5-6 days. This produces an average cost of $4.52 per year.
Net Zero
The results for net zero energy is more drastic because you are making money from the energy efficiency. You would save $18.3 per m^2 annually. The factors affecting this cost would be the lighting efficiency, PV payback limit, and PV surface coverage. 90% of the roof has to be covered in PV panels to meet this goal. This makes building a green space on the roof difficult because you have to balance out with cooling and heating equipment too. For PV payback limit, it would have to be a 30 year time frame. And lighting efficiency, like Architecture 2030, require 7.53 W/m^2 to save $1.59/m^2 annually.
