They’re not looking out into an industrial unit or to another wall… The atrium is very large.
For this reason, implementing a sustainable design strategy incorporates every aspect of the building process, from the earliest design stages through to construction and post-completion.Evaluating an asset’s performance, and understanding how its entire environment operates, forms a key part of our work within Sustainability and Building Physics at Bryden Wood.
We look at how a building gains heat in summer, or loses it in winter; how it requires natural or artificial light; as well as issues like temperature control, moisture and air movement.Although some of the focus on this topic was lost in the last recession, the industry’s renewed commitment to sustainability in design is intensifying.This is in large part due to the climate emergency and our need to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
However, it’s also due to our simple desire to create the best buildings we can; those which promote health and well-being for occupants, and are comfortable, durable and safe to use.. WELL building standards and passive design.As in so many other areas of our lives, COVID-19 has created new challenges within the architecture and design space, with clients now regularly requesting COVID-secure design.
The idea of designing for COVID is very compatible with sustainable design’s broader focus on health and wellbeing, and ties in nicely with the WELL Building Standard.
This American rating system, launched in 2013 and now in the UK, challenges the built environment from a wellness perspective, while the UK’s earlier environmental assessment method, BREEAM, also places some attention on things like thermal comfort and air volumes.While achieving low approach temperatures, their heat rejection capacity per unit volume is typically lower.
This is because they rely solely on air cooling, and air has a lower specific heat capacity than water.. HDAC units:.These units present a trade-off between approach temperature and capacity per unit volume.
The graph shows both operating modes of the same size HDAC unit providing two different heat rejection capacities.. Air-cooled chiller (Free Cooling):.This option is included in the graph, but the chiller size is at a disadvantage because it incorporates additional components beyond just the heat unit (chiller) such as evaporators, compressors, condensers, and, in some cases, a CHW pump.
(Editor: Space-Saving Shelves)