ROUGE RHYTHM
WEI YING'S PORTFOLIO
Building Science 1
Project 1: Case study- Analysing Passive Design Strategies
We had formed a group of seven and selected Hrriot-Watt University Malaysian Campus as our case study for this module's project. The newly built Heriot-Watt University Malaysian Campus is located at the precinct urban town of Putrajaya, along the bay of Putrajaya Waterfront. We are to explore and familiarise ourselves with passive design strategies inplemented on buildings in tropical climate and produce a thorough research/analysis data documentation of the strategies used on our case study building.
Our case study building is a listed Certified Green Building with the most notable feature of a curved green roof. The 2 passive design strategies we had chosen to venture in are the green roof and the shading device of the building. The shading device on the building facade includes aluminum horizontal and vertical louvers which are then taken into account as the modern eggcrate shading device for the purpose of shading coefficient calculation. We explored on the workability of selected passive design strategies by analysing the effects of solar radiation, thermal mass, insulation, and ventilation on the case study building.
Panel 1 - Climate, wind rose diagrams and thermal analysis of the building(Green Roof)
Panel 2 - Sunpath diagrams, shading device and psychometric chart as conclusion indicating thermal comfort is achieved with the 2 passive design strategies.
I have familiarise myself with the passive design strategies implemented on buildings in local tropical climate upon completion on this project module. I have also gained an in depth undestanding on the effects of insulation, thermal mass and air movement on thermal performance of buildings which would then help to bring down the OTTV of the building by relating through references of MS1525,UBBL,GBI and Green Mark Standards. Moreover, I am able to relate how environmental factors affect the site condition as well as the building performance based on user comfort. I have also delved into the effectivity of passive design strategies by analysing whether these strategies are able to successfully reduce heat gain through a building.
Furthermore, I have learned the calculations of U-Values and OTTV of the green roof, which are the factors that determine the amount of solar heat gain through buildings. We had made comparisons of green roof with standard RC roof. Based on the findings, I find out that green roof is able to act as an heat insulating barrier which woould then reduce the air-cond load of the building, rendered the building to be cost-effective. I am also exposed to the principles of how heat transfers and behaves within a building and able to dentify and define the notion of heat transfer in relation to building and people.