BUILDING SCIENCE 1

This project requires group work with maximum 6 students :

• Choose a building that best features 2 passive design strategy for tropical climate. That buildings should be a certified and recognized as Green Building.

• Have a thorough research on the passive design strategies, the principles and details needed for these passive design strategies to perform best in tropical climate and to achieve thermal comfort in this building/space.

• Identify two (2) passive design strategies used for a building.

• Identify an instrument /equipment or software/interview/survey to aid in proving that the passive design strategy is effective in this building.

Sun Shading Analysis Board, NTU Learning Hub Singapore

Ventilation Analysis Board, NTU Learning Hub Singapore

For this project, we visited to Singapore for the site visit. Before the site visit, we had formed a group of 6 for this project. The task for this project was to investigate the sun shading device and the passive ventilation used in the building we had assigned to. For our group, we had been assigned to the NTU Learning Hub (Nan Yang Technology University, Singapore). As we had two tasks to investigate, we had divided our group into 2 pairs, each pair doing each task. Two of my friends annd I had chosen the sun shading device as our task for this project.

During our first visit to the NTU Learning Hub, we had been given a lecture by the staff of the NTU about the building itself. Fortunately, we had the chance to get to meet the architect as well and we got to ask some questions about the architecture of the building. It was really a great experiece to explore the building and investigate about the methods used for sun shading and ventilation.

The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore, in conjunction with Heatherwick Studio, held a media tour of its new Learning Hub on 10 March 2015. The Learning Hub is the design firm’s first major permanent building in Asia. The Learning Hub building was awarded Green Mark Platinum status by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) Singapore.

The building form is designed to incorporate passive environmental features such as:

Good window-towall ratio
Self-shading building form
Open First Storey
Balcony between pods
Use of better glass to enhance thermal comfort in the building
Concrete wall with 300mm thick window Strip at the top

They also maximize “green footprint” by landscaping; vertical green as means to reduce glare & heat gain.

For the passive ventilation, they used chiller displacement ventilation to replace the use of air-conditioning in all tutorial rooms, writing centre and also the library to:

Reduce structural and material cost
Reduce noise level
Good thermal comfort
Better RH control

Architecture aims at Eternity