Summary Report

Summary Report

Green School & Gyaan Center

Idil Yilmaz and Alexis Bailey

1 - Idil - Green School

Heart of School Building

The school’s guiding principles are creating a sustainable and flexible learning environment where the students are encouraged to learn hands-on and through nature. It is focused heavily on having an ecological design in many ways:

• Bamboo architecture is used all throughout the building as a sustainable and locally sourced material,

• The structure is made up of a framework of crisscrossed bundles of bamboo culms and the parabolic arc are held together with anticlastic gridshells,

• The building is not closed off from the elements, the natural weather is adapted to by the students and staff,

• Creation of sustainable organic gardens that grow along with and revitalize vegetation in the area,

• While the building doesn't run entirely off of the electricity grid, the structure is powered by numerous alternative energy sources, including a bamboo sawdust hot water and cooking system, solar panels, and a water-powered generator,

ASHRAE Climate zone: Extremely HotKoppen Climate zone: Tropical Rainforest Annual Total Solar Radiation: 2011 kWh/m2 Outdoor Temp Range: 26 C- 33 C Area: 2740 m2 Location: Bali, Indonesia

Alexis - Gyaan Center

The Rajkumari Ratnavati Girls School

This school focuses on providing a sustainable, comfortable environment for girls of all ages to access education and resources they cannot otherwise. The center works to also be a sustainable buildings through many ways:

• The building is made from 95% local materials. Infrastructure is made from traditional and on-site materials, including the community in creating a project that will benefit them. The exterior is made of stones that are easily found in Jaisalmer and crafted with traditional techniques,

• The exterior infrastructure overall aimed to reduce carbon emissions,

• A roof made of recycled ceramic tile and lime plaster for the classrooms, more easily found materials.

• Solar panels for lights and fans, as well as passive cooling techniques that act when the building hits a certain temperature,

• Building orientation and shape that is maximized to reduce the worst of the wind flow and to create a continuous elliptical flow of cooling air,

ASHRAE Climate zone: Extremely HotKoppen Climate zone: Arid Desert Hot Annual Total Solar Radiation: 2161 kWh/m2 Outdoor Temp Range: 36 C- 42 C Area: 836 m2 Location: Jaisalmer, India

Gyaan Center

2 - Green School

Actual EUI: 148 kwh/m2-yr

Target EUI: 91 kWh/m2-yr

Actual EUI: 157 kwh/m2-yr

Target EUI: 90 kWh/m2-yr

Both of our actual EUIs were the average institutional building EUIs for the respective countries, close to 150 kWh/m^2-yr. We aimed for a 40% lower EUI, which is roughly 90 kWh/m^2-yr for both school zones. Another reason why we chose this number is that we are interested in the potential of creating a net-zero project with the knowledge of what we study in our buildings. Since both of our buildings have very eco-conscious design decisions, and one is LEED certified, we will adapt the design tactics used in our two precedent school buildings, in order to maximize their sustainability.

Gyaan Center

3 - Green School

February 15, Noon

February 15, Noon

February 15, 3:00PM

February 15, 3:00PM

This building has no other surrounding context, other than the desert it resides it. It is thus designed for providing lots of shade through its roof design, along with its use of windows that filter sunlight into the interior along with providing air ventilation.

As to not encroach on the very shady forest that completely surrounds it, this school is built entirely out sustainable materials, namely bamboo. The roof system and tree canopy provide for a lot of shade, and it being all open air allows for ventilation.

Gyaan Center

3 - Green School

Daily Temperature Chart for India

Daily Temperature Chart for Indonesia

Temperature Chart for India

Temperature Chart for Indonesia

The Gyaan Center is located in an Arid Desert Hot climate zone, and is described by ASHRAE to be extremely hot. The outdoor temperatures range from 35.9 degrees Celsius to 41.9 degrees Celsius during the warmest months (April-October), and 13.8 degrees Celsius to 32.2 degrees Celsius during the colder months (November-February).

The Green School is located Tropical Rainforest climate zone, and is described by ASHRAE to be extremely hot. The outdoor temperature ranges from 26 degrees Celsius to 33.4 degrees Celsius year round and there is no significant difference in ranges throughout the months.

4 - Green School - Daylight Availability & Improvements

Improvements and modifications: Since the third floor of this building receives sufficient, if not too much natural daylight, the natural sunlight access may be limited. This can be achieved through multiple methods including modifying the sizes of the openings of the buildings or adding extra shading elements such as blinds, overhangs, walls, and glazed windows. Since this study was done specifically on the top floor of the building, I believe modifications to the size of the sky roof would be the best approach to limiting daylight into the building. Making them either narrower or making the thickness of the roof more would result in positive outcomes in terms of achieving optimum daylight. A more obvious modification to the building could be adding walls or glass windows with glazing. Currently, all of the light that enters the building enters it without being filtered at all. The only instance of filtration could perhaps be the thick band of trees that surround the building. According to the simulation results, there is not enough glazing in certain parts of the building near the sky lights. Perhaps solid walls or blinds with lower visual light transmittance would work as well. Similar results would be achieved if the overhang of the roof were to extend even further than they already do.

sDA: 73%

I believe the material of the building works in terms of keeping light reflection to a minimum, no reflective surfaces are used, only bamboo is used. So there is no need to modify the materials of the building.

Daylight Availability

4 - Green School - Annual Sunlight Exposure

Glare before curtain : 24.8%

Photo of 3rd Floor

My furnished Rhino model of 3rd floor

Glare after curtain : 1.2%

The glare is relatively high at a 24%, so I added a curtain over the skylight, which successfully brought the glare down to 1.2%. Because the 3rd floor is meant to only be storage and lounging space, the glare is not too disturbing even at 24%, because it is not readily occupied. Therefore a curtain is not needed, but could be implemented if the program were to change. A majority of the area underneath the skylight is structural support and the whole building lacks walls and windows. I was able to find photos of what this space is furnished like through Google Map photo submissions. It seemed like they added minimal shelves for storage, desks, and some chairs. I also saw “no access” signs on the stairs that led to the third floor, so I assumed that the third floor is exclusively used for storage (or maybe a staff lounge), and not accessible to the students. So any instances of glare would be insignificant and would not cause any thermal discomfort to the occupants.

4 - Green School - Annual Sunlight Exposure & Glare

After Curtain

Before Curtain

After laying out the furniture of the third floor, I made a floor plan view of the DGP Annual Distribution. I found that there was 63.2% of disturbing glare more than 5% of the time, which is a very high percentage. I observed the most glare underneath the skylight, and less around the borders of the floor suggesting that the skylight is the primary reason for the glare, and not any windows or facade elements. Due to my observations, I decided to run the Hemispheric Glare Map with and without a semi-transparent curtain over the skylight. The results without the curtain can be seen on the sphere above with the original glare amount. The results with a curtain added can be seen below it where the sDG annual distribution is brought down to 4.6% from the previous percentage that was 63.2%. The floorplan also shows how the curtain over the skylight significantly reduces the disturbing glare. It seems as though the only glare is received from past the railings and not the skylight anymore. The simulation run from November 24 at 9:30AM showed that there was 0% disturbing glare, resulting in 100% imperceptible glare, which is a great improvement from the results before curtains were added.

4 - Gyaan Center - Daylight Availability & Annual Solar Exposure

sDA: 69%

Initial Glare

Daylight Availability

Per the simulation, the Gyaan Center receives a significantly high amount of daylight, and much of the spaces receive a sufficient amount of light to have normal living conditions. This means that 69.1% of the spaces in the building receive adequate daylight, but the other 30% do not, and that is clear enough to see in the model. Because of the gaps in the wall only being that small concentrated band on the exterior, many of the classroom spaces do not receive any natural light at all. It is even seen in the photos of the building that there are many dark corners in the rooms. It is understandable why it was designed this way–the sun is harsh and blaring, and the gaps provide for a filtration and control of that light. On the other hand, the courtyard space gets all of the daylight with hardly any protection. In some cases, the architect has suggested implementing a tapestry to cover the area in some drawings (which I have not seen in any completed building photos), but with the wind conditions and the large size of the courtyard, along with the fact that the proposed size does not cover that much of the space, I did not think it was a permanent solution.

4 - Gyaan Center - Daylight & Solar Exposure: Strategies

Glare in Iteration 1

For improvements, I think the most important one to start with is opening the already existing gaps that are being used as windows. There are no current materials there, so if instead of these wall openings, the building had larger glass windows, the classrooms could receive a lot of more natural light. I would also suggest blinds, so users could still optimize how much light they wanted in a space rather than allowing a ton of daylight to enter the space freely. Thus, we experimented with adding a pergola shading structure, but it still had too much exposure as the number only went down to 51.7%. Instead, a shading canopy system was implemented that was able to bring the number down more, however it is still fairly high due to the roof space, at a total number of 38.1% However, if the roof space is not considered occupiable, it goes further down to around 29.2%

Glare in Iteration 2

4 - Gyaan Center - Annual Solar Exposure & Glare

Window Strategy

Inital Glare

Inital Glare/Light Render

Final Glare

Classroom sDA Percentage

I zoomed in on one of the classroom spaces to further analyze just how much light these rooms really do or do not get, and whether or not the “window” openings that are provided are really functional as windows. Because this building technically does not have windows however (as well as the fact that the openings at the top are pretty small) the Annual Glare percentage turned out to be 0.0% in the room. After discussing with the professor, rather than determining how to reduce glare (given we cannot reduce it), we found it would be more beneficial to try to design a way for more daylight to enter the area while still having a relatively low glare percentage. Classrooms across the building's floor plan vary from 31.5% to about 70%, with this specific classroom I chose having 59.7% of the space properly lit. Therefore, I set upon improving this number without sacrificing a low glare percentage.

Final sDA of Classroom

Final Glare/Light Render

For the design, I decided to puncture through the wall in a couple places about four feet above the ground for new windows. I did not add any window pane or glass; I felt it was more sustainable to use the least amount of materials possible. This can help cool down the space, allowing for further air flow and circulation. The result of my new window opening strategy now means 100% of the space is being daylighted properly. Glare also remained 0.0% even after I made larger openings in the wall. I got rid of a lot of the dark corners that existed in the space, and overall improved the learning environment of the classroom, as it would be much harder to learn in a space that only gets good light from the hours of 12:00 to 2:00 pm.

4 - Gyaan Center - Environmental Performance

Materials Used in Model Since I couldn’t find any specific material option for stone or masonry, I looked under material options that were listed in climate zone 2. Additionally, since the material is a local stone, there was not really an exact U-value number that I could find online. I decided to trust doing a climate zone 2 Non-residential material for everything. Since everything in the building is made with the same material, all of my zones have the same U-values that have been listed below: I was also required to add a material to the windows on the building (dark blue color), and since they are technically just openings on the actual building massing, I decided to go with the option “Air Wall.” I could not find statistics on this option for glazing online, but to the best of my ability and based on the numbers that have been provided on the chart, I believe this is the most accurate to having no window glazing there at all. The U-value is 0, and the Tvis number is 0.99. The Embodied Energy and the Embodied Carbon are also equal to 0, therefore ensuring the window glazing system does not take up energy in the simulation. The window also has the exterior shade option on.

Thermal EUI: For this building and its climate, the cooling would be more consistent, as while the heat does vary, and these numbers align with the hottest months. There is not much lighting used due to the abundance of natural light. Also due to the building’s more passive means of climate control; the only true equipment being the solar powered fans.

Shading

• Small window openings, canopy system, curved rooftop feature that helps block angling sunlight

4 - Gyaan Center - Thermal Envelope

Materials Used in Model Since I couldn’t find any specific material option for stone or masonry, I looked under material options that were listed in climate zone 2. Additionally, since the material is a local stone, there was not really an exact U-value number that I could find online. I decided to trust doing a climate zone 2 Non-residential material for everything. Since everything in the building is made with the same material, all of my zones have the same U-values that have been listed above: I was also required to add a material to the windows on the building (dark blue color), and since they are technically just openings on the actual building massing, I decided to go with the option “Air Wall.” I could not find statistics on this option for glazing online, but to the best of my ability and based on the numbers that have been provided on the chart, I believe this is the most accurate to having no window glazing there at all. The U-value is 0, and the Tvis number is 0.99. The Embodied Energy and the Embodied Carbon are also equal to 0, therefore ensuring the window glazing system does not take up energy in the simulation. The window also has the exterior shade option on.

Thermal Envelope

• Enclosure made entirely of natural stone material
• “Windows,” no glass/blinds

Shading

• Small window openings, canopy system, curved rooftop feature helps block angling sunlight

PV Panels

• 40 Panels

Shading

• Small window openings, canopy system, curved rooftop feature that helps block angling sunlight

4 - Green School - Environmental Performance

For this building and its climate, the cooling would be more consistent, as while the heat does vary, and these numbers align with the hottest months. There is not much lighting used due to the abundance of natural light. Also due to the building’s more passive means of climate control; the only true equipment being the solar powered fans. In order to decrease the EUI, the first step I took was to adjust the lighting power density to the level that I calculated in Assignment 5. The default simulation was set at 4.4 W/m2. I ran the simulation at 2.78 W/m2, which was the lighting power density I had previously calculated. This significantly brought the EUI down from 155 to 141 kWh/m^2. The Op. Carbon and Energy Cost also went down slightly. For my third iteration, I increased the protrusion of the shading elements in order to bring down the cooling factor. This resulted in an EUI of 140 kWh/m^2, which was only 1 kWh/m^2 less, so I decided to take a different approach. I edited the windows, and reduced the number of openings down to about half as much. This resulted in a slightly more significant decrease in EUI. The final EUI I arrived at was 139 kWh/m^2. I calculated the occupancy adjusted new EUI of the building as can be seen below. The EUI dropped from 139 kWh/m^2 to 116 kWh/m^2 after these new adjustments. This is a pretty big decrease of the initial EUI which was 155 kWh/m^2. A 39 kWh/m^2 decrease to be exact.This shows that decreasing the peak occupancy of the building makes very significant results in the total EUI. This makes sense considering that the amount of appliances used would be much less if there were less people using them. The gradual change of EUI depending on various adjustments can be observed in the final comparison chart below.

Shading

• Small window openings, canopy system, curved rooftop feature that helps block angling sunlight

4 - Green School - Thermal Envelope

Materials Used in Model The website we were given in the assignment did not have an option for bamboo material, so I searched it up online and found that it was 1.4 W/m^2. The simulation required a material for the windows so I assigned the material with the lowest visible light transmission (TVis). This was Graylite - Solarban 90 (3) (Argon), which has a U-Value of 1.33 and TVis of 0.051. It also had an embodied energy of 427.5 MJ/m^2 and embodied carbon of 25.935 kgCO2/m^2. For the perimeter, I used a secondary school corridor zone in climate zone 2. And for the cores, I used a secondary school classroom zone in climate zone 2. I used the same numbers for the other details as the simulation tutorial.

No Thermal Envelope

• No enclosures
• No walls or windows
• No insulation or HVACPV

Panels

• 120 panles for the whole campus

Shading

• Bamboo overhang roof
• Thick forest to filter light while still providing breeze

Shading

• Small window openings, canopy system, curved rooftop feature that helps block angling sunlight

5 - Potential Building Envelope Changes and Thermal Simulations

The Green School

The Gyaan Center

• The first step I took was to adjust the lighting power density to the level. The default simulation was set at 4.4 W/m2. I ran the simulation at 2.78 W/m2. This significantly brought the EUI down from 155 to 141 kWh/m^2.
• For my third iteration, I increased the protrusion of the shading elements in order to bring down the cooling factor. This resulted in an EUI of 140 kWh/m^2, which was only 1 kWh/m^2 less, so I decided to take a different approach. I edited the windows, and reduced the number of openings down to about half as much. This resulted in a slightly more significant decrease in EUI, which was 139 kWh/m^2. I concluded that the lighting power density was a more significant contributor to the total EUI than the overhang/ no. of windows.

• I started by changing all the windows from the “Air Wall” glazing to the “Solarcool on Pacifica - Clear” windows which have an U-value of 2.69 as opposed to 0. I also chose for the windows to have interior shading. This brought the site EUI down from 87 to kWh/m^2 per year to 69 kWh/m^2 per year.
• Next, I decided to change each of the windows to have exterior shading, and tried to experiment with making the roof circulation space on top more of a shading element. I believe however, that the interior shading was a better method for the windows, as while some of my cooling for certain months (cooler months) went significantly down, others did not change, and the site EUI increased by a bit.

Conclusion

Gyaan Center: Project Goal EUI: 91 kWh/m2 per year Final Sim Results: 77 kWh/m2 per year (Starting EUI: 157 kWh/m2 per year)

After running multiple simulations, we’ve discovered that improving upon these buildings’ sustainable designs makes our goal of achieving a net-zero building possible. As they have already been carefully designed for the cooling dominated climates that they are located in. They are sustainable in the sense that they don’t use electricity for lighting or thermal enveloping systems. Instead, the architectural elements (such as perforated bricks and cross ventilation) cool down the interior spaces. However, we have also learned that these buildings succeed and fail in different ways. Both deal with issues involving glare and daylight, but the Green School has too much light, while rooms in the Gyaan Center don’t get enough.

Green School: Project Goal EUI: 90 kWh/m2 per year Final Sim Results: 116 kWh/m2 per year (Starting EUI: 157 kWh/m2 per year)

Thank you for your time!