Urbanvitality

Research

Cool summers and mild winters are very typical in Delft for maritime climate. The average temperature in summer is 22 ° C (36 ° F ). The hottest time usually occurs at the end of July as well as the beginning of August, while the coldest period is from December till February, when the temperature drops to around -1 ° C or even -5 °C . Even so, the annual average of temperature is only 10° C (50° F ).
 

In Delft, relative humidity fluctuates around an average of 83%, while the average amount of precipitation for the whole year in Delft is 834mm (higher than the national average precipitation of 790 mm ) , November having the largest amount of rainfall (as opposed to August for the entire country). Finally, the predominant winds are southwestly, includ ing those with the highest speeds.” Besides, it is windy, wet and cloudy at most time of the year , and in the winter months fog often occurs , so does the rainfall.

 

Problem statements:

1.Heat loss happens in this single glazed window of Orange Room in BK city;
2.The current glass curtain wall is so poorly insulated that wind enters the room directly, even worse is that in winter,when the outside temperature is -5° C, wind goes inside the room without being heated up to a more mild temperature, thus it's not comfortable for people who work in this room. Generally , there are also several negative factors related to climate in Delft,which can be limited sunshine , frequently rainfall and unsteady temperature difference from daytime to night time,etc.
In order to balance the temperature variation within the day as well as the year I want to come up with a system that helps to keep the warm inside in winter as well as cool the room down in summer.

 

Redesign

Water can be preserved in huge transparent tubes which can be 10 meters high and 400-500cm in diameter. I want to build up these tubes filled with water next to the facade of Orange Room on the inside to store direct heat from the sun in the day and then let it go at night due to thermal inertia. 

 

Firstly, considering one of the negative factors,the constant rainfall, I want to turn it into something useful , so I was thinking a water collection&circulation system may help and then the water can be used as thermal mass to store heat and bring the heat to whole room, because water, on the other hand, is one of the best heat-storage materials,for not only it has the highest heat capacity of any material, but also because it has a very high heat-absorption rate. In winter,natural convection currents as well as conduction help to transfer the heat to the interior of the mass. So something like rainwater collection, recycling or infiltration should be considered, or even think about if we can reuse gray water, because like gardening, toilet flushing, washing clothes, cleaning...they are all ok with gray water. Further, rainwater collecting requires the installation of suitable drains, special filters and tanks for the storage. Dealing with rainwater can be an opportunity to improve the surrounding environment and biological diversity (increasing green surfaces, implementing green roofs etc.) Considering where to store water , because people always go down by a ramp as they enter the Orange Room,so in order to even the hight difference ,I lift the ground level up by 600mm and use the space underneath for water storage. In order to maintain the water to a pleasant temperature,with the research on geothermal energy, it is known that the temperature beneath the upper 6 metres (20 ft) of Earth’s surface maintains a nearly constant temperature between 10 and 16 ° C (50 and 60° F), that is to say 10° C in this case. The smart thing is water at such moderate temperature can both cool the room in summer when outdoor temperature is 30° C and heat the room in winter when it’s -5° C outside. But water at 10° C is still a bit low for winter cooling, typically the lowest required cooling water temperature should be more than 62 ° F (16 ° C), and the highest heating water temperature is no more than 79° F (27° C).

 

With the knowledge of geothermal energy, water is collected from the roof on the ground as floor heating&cooling strategy to work on the entire room. The radiant heating&cooling systems thus require a large surface area of the exposed ceiling and floors, in this case, It has to be on the floor,because in the big open space of the Orange Room ,only the bottom is frequently used by people and the hot air only goes up in this way we should keep the warm on the ground so that people would get direct radiation from the floor heating, roof heating doesn’t really work because the heat cannot get to people efficiently because the area between the level where daily activities take place and the ceiling is large. Besides floor heating&cooling system is considered the most pleasant way for body comfort with direct radiation from the floor,because people usually prefer a higher temperature on their feet level than on top of them. Further,together with a geothermal heat pump,a conjunction with both downhole heat exchangers as well as underground heat exchange loop can largely improve the efficiency for winter heating mode, since a downhole heat exchangers can go deep into aquifer where the temperature is much higher than the shallow ground.
 

Sun Shedding system:
The Orange Room is a green house,so a sun shedding system is necessary to minimize the green house effect in summer,apart from that it
can also prevent the water inside the tube being over heated. It is placed between the Tromble wall and the glass facade.