Environmental Strategies

I have had environmental considerations and strategies in my head with every design move I make. My early studies were an important part of the design process because they dictated the area where the light catchers could be placed to efficiently 'catch' light for the depository below. This diagram shows the areas of most (orange) and least (grey) solar gain, and I have used it to place all of my light catchers (small black squares):

The reading/study rooms however require more natural light so have a larger light void above them, which is capped with a glass ceiling. I have designed these light towers to be tall enough so that direct sunlight does not penetrate to the room below and damage precious material. The winter and summer sun angles are shown below:

Materiality experiments for the reading rooms. I want to create a subtle contrast to the eerie corridors leading up to the study rooms, by using bespoke furniture/decoration. The light void, at just over 2m wide should provide adequate natural light to illuminate the reading desk but controllable artificial lighting is also required in these spaces (winter afternoons for instance).

Wind.

I have placed the wind catchers at the south and west of the site to make best use of the prevailing winds from this direction, and the strong winds that blow down Grange Road:

Views looking south down Grange Road, where the main body of wind blows from:

I have explained my wind-catchers in more detail in other blog entries, but these diagrams show the basics. Cold, fresh air is sucked in using the natural stack effect, which ventilates the spaces underground, and warm, stale air is expelled on the north/east sides. I have designed the towers to be tall enough so that people walking past them do not experience the gusts of hot stale air - the vents are 3-4m above ground level.

 

I had an idea to use the main public/exhibition tower as a wind catcher too. Instead of the wind hitting the flat facade and creating gusty conditions for people at the bottom, the tower could have a built-in wind shaft that collects fresh air and feeds it into the plant room where it could be mechanically distributed for underground ventilation.

The floor plates of the tower are small enough (9.8m x 9.8m) that they can be naturally cross-ventilated. This keeps things simple in a small building:

 

Finally this section shows how my design fits in with existing mains water pipes running through the site. The ceiling of the depository is 2.8m below grade so this accommodates all the existing servicing pipes in the site... i.e. they do not need to be relocated.