Glenn KatzEnter (or choose) your name in the Your Name field above.
Then, describe your design inspirations and big feature ideas using text, images, web links, movies... Whatever media works best to express your ideas!
Your Design Journal entries for this module should highlight your design thinking and analysis results that influenced your decisions about:
- your overall HVAC system strategy
- your heating strategy and how you implemented it in your design
- your cooling strategy and how you implemented it
- any special HVAC system challenges that you encountered
My floor height for each level is 15 ft, for the HVAC system I installed them at a height between 9.5 ft to 13.25 ft to avoid conflict with the structure beams and to maintain a reasonable height for the floors. Since I have a big atrium in the middle of my building, I have limited space where I can place the HVAC ducts. So I set all the ducts (apply and return) to the same height and overlay the apply duct and return duct to minimize the space required. The air terminals are placed either in the opposite direction or in different locations to avoid conflict between the two types of air systems.
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5
Space Budget
The airflow supplied and returned assigned to each space is based on the heating and cooling analysis. Zones on each floor containing a couple of spaces are created based on the path I want to lay my ducts. The automatic system created a single space for the atrium on each floor but it’s actually connected to the open spaces lobby/exhibitions. Therefore, I included the air supply for the atrium with the open-space exhibitions, that’s also why in the space budget the actual air supply is 0 CFM and for open space is much higher than calculated. Also, because the stairway on the fourth floor is separated from the other part of the building, I doubled the air supply for the third-floor stairway.
Challenges:
Because I have quite different layouts from level to level, I was very concerned about where I could place my air handler. After trying out a couple of locations, I decided to place the air handler next to the elevator at the back of the building. For this decision, I need to adjust some of my architectural designs to make some room for the air handler, but in this way, I can keep a consistent location for my handler for the first four levels. For the fifth level, I have a lot of glazing windows and I placed the air handler outside the exterior wall next to the green roof. Also, because I have an atrium in the middle of the building, I have less space can place the HVAC system. Therefore, I overlay the apply and return system to minimize space usage. Since I’m overlaying the two systems, it was challenging to make sure the systems don’t clash with each other. Eventually, I made all the ducts into the same height so it’s easier for me to keep track of the systems. Also because of this, I need to make relatively wider ducts at the beginning of the whole system.