Overview.

Here is an overall view of the work I’ve done this week for my ice rink. The roof is hidden in this screenshot so the elements of Level 2 can be seen.

And here is a look at Level 1.

Since last week, I have realized that I grossly overestimated the necessary size of a Zamboni room. I originally had it as an 85’ x 50’ room, but I went into the Zamboni room of the San Jose Ice Center a few days ago and measured the room to be about 25’ x 30’. This room also houses two Zambonis and services two ice surfaces, so I have adjusted my Zamboni room to have similar dimensions. With the extra space, I was also able to add locker rooms next to the Olympic rink. There is also a large open space between the locker rooms and ice surface, which could now be used as a warmup area for the figure skaters.

Building Envelope Design.

Walls.

Exterior Walls.The exterior walls are made up of Brick on CMU walls and Curtain Wall with 1/4 inch thick double glazing glass. The brick walls have a R-value of 31.63 (h-ft2-ºF)/BTU. This high R-value will serve great to offset the low R-value of the curtain wall elements. The curtain wall panels have a R-value of 2.86 (h-ft2-ºF)/BTU, VLT of .73, and SHGC of .6. I chose these panels because of their higher R-value to maintain insulation and higher VLT to let in daylighting. The brick walls are placed on all the exteriors where there is no intentionally placed curtain walls. There are two main curtain walls in my building - the east side for the Olympic rink and the north side for the NHL rink.

I also painted all the walls white with the intention that the color would reflect solar heat rather than absorbing it and heating the building.

Interior Walls. All the interior walls are 5 1/2” 1-hr partitions with an R-value of 21.33 (h-ft2-ºF)/BTU. This high R-value will also allow non-ice spaces to stay warm. The interior curtain walls that line the portion of NHL rink room to the lobby area uses the same double glazing glass panels as the exterior curtain walls.

Doors.

Glass Doors. The doors for less private rooms, as in the gym, dance studio, and offices, all have two glass panels in them. This is to connect these rooms more to the overall space of the building, rather than fully closing them off and giving a stuffy feeling.

The door for the main entrance also has glass panels, but is a double door is it would be servicing more people going in and out of the people.

Solid Doors. The doors that lead to more private rooms, as in the locker rooms and bathrooms, are all single-flush 36” x 84” doors.

Sliding Doors. The doors leading to the NHL rink room are automatic sliding doors. This is because the temperature in that room must be maintained at a colder temperature than the lobby area, so the automatic sliding doors allow for less infiltration that might occur with manual doors if a person were to forget to close the door.

Zamboni. The doors of the Zamboni room must fit the Zamboni and have a minimum 4 feet clearance on both sides, according to this reference brochure for the Zamboni Model 700, which I will be basing my building design on. The Zamboni at its widest is 8.5 feet, so the door opening must be at minimum 16.5 feet. The minimum height is 10 feet. Doors will be required on two sides of the Zamboni room to access both the NHL rink and the Olympic rink, as well as a door to the NHL rink room itself. There is one more door on the exterior north side of the room for snow dumping. I used an overhead-rolling door loaded from the Autodesk cloud, but edited the dimensions to fit my requirements.

Roof.

I chose insulated wood rafters as the material as I am interested in the performance of timber in an rice rink setting. I also think this would allow for occupants of the building to have more exposure to natural materials, which could positively contribute to their wellbeing and environmental consciousness.

The roof has no special elements. This is because I do not think that the building calls for any more special elements. No sloping or skylights are needed as the rinks already get a lot of lighting and heat gain from the curtain walls and windows, and I do not want any more heat gain. It would have solar panels and could house HVAC systems. I could also add additional sloped tiling to match the architecture of other Stanford buildings, similar to Y2E2.

Shading/Sun Control Features.

The main sun control feature are the overhangs on the east, south, and west sides. My Revit is being silly though and is not allowing me to model overhangs off of my roof.

Other.

Ice Rink. This is not part of the building envelope, but I also added more detail to the ice rinks models using a simple generic floor to represent the ice surfaces. According to the NHL’s Official Rules, the rink must be 200 ft x 85 ft with a corner radius of 28 ft. The boards surrounding rink will be the ideal height of 3.5 ft with 8 ft tall safety glasses on top. The Olympic rink will follow the International Ice Hockey Federation’s specifications of 200 ft x 100 ft with a corner radius of 28 ft.

Ceiling of outdoor area. Another detail I enjoyed thinking about was making the ceiling of the area leading to the entrance wood. When people are walking to the door, they would enter shade and when they look up, they would see wood, which is an additional exposure to a natural material.

Energy Model.

Upon creating an Energy Model and submitting to the Insight analysis tool, the building as modeled has a Predicted Mean EUI of 36.2 kBtu/ft2/year.

I then adjusted the tiles for PV panels to see how the building would perform if it had this source of renewable energy. I specified a payback limit of 20 years, panel efficiency of 20.4%, and surface coverage of 90%. This resulted in a Predicted Mean EUI of -34 kBtu/ft2/year.

Adjusting other tiles did not yield much of a difference to the EUI.

Another thing to note, however, is that I have not specified in the model the temperature that ice rinks should stay at. This would likely drive up the energy usage in cooling load. This would be work that will be implemented in future as I continue to develop the model.