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Double-skin
The double-skin façade is a system of building consisting of two skins, or façades, placed in such a way that air flows in the intermediate cavity. The ventilation of the cavity can be natural, fan supported or mechanical. Apart from the type of the ventilation inside the cavity, the origin and destination of the air can differ depending mostly on climatic conditions, the use, the location, the occupational hours of the building and the HVAC strategy. The glass skins can be single or double glazing units with a distance from 20 cm up to 2 metres. Often, for protection and heat extraction reasons during the cooling period, solar shading devices are placed inside the cavity. History The essential concept of the double-skin facade was first explored and tested by the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier in the early 20th century. His idea, which he called ''mur neutralisant'' (neutralizing wall), involved the insertion of heating/cooling pipes between large layers of glass. Su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1 Angel Square
One Angel Square is an office building in Manchester, England. Construction work began in 2010 and was completed in February 2013. The landmark building is the head office of the Co-operative Group. Standing 72.5 metres (237.8 feet) tall, the building forms the centrepiece of the new £800 million NOMA development in the Angel Meadows area of Manchester city centre. The building cost at least £105 million to construct and was sold on leaseback terms in 2013 for £142 million. One Angel Square is one of the most sustainable large buildings in Europe and is built to a BREEAM 'Outstanding' rating. It is powered by a biodiesel cogeneration plant using rapeseed oil to provide electricity and heat. The structure makes use of natural resources, maximising passive solar gain for heat and using natural ventilation through its double-skin facade, adiabatic cooling, rainwater harvesting, greywater recycling and waste heat recycling. The building's distinctive form has been compared to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Lescaze
William Edmond Lescaze, FAIA (March 27, 1896 – February 9, 1969), was a Swiss-born American architect, city planner and industrial designer. He is ranked among the pioneers of modernism in American architecture. Biography William Lescaze was born in Onex, Switzerland. He studied at the Collège Calvin and at the École des Beaux-Arts, before completing his formal education at the École polytechnique fédérale de Zurich in Zurich where Karl Moser was a teacher, receiving his degree in 1919. He contributed to the post-war reconstruction effort of Arras, and then immigrated to the United States in 1920. He worked for some time at the architectural firm of Hubbell & Benes in Cleveland, Ohio, and taught French at the local YMCA's night classes. In 1923, he was offered a modeling job and moved to New York City where he set up his business. His first major work was the design of the Oak Lane Country Day School outside Philadelphia. After a brief time in New York, he returned t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Lee Loomis
Alfred Lee Loomis (November 4, 1887 – August 11, 1975) was an American attorney, investment banker, philanthropist, scientist, physicist, inventor of the LORAN Long Range Navigation System and a lifelong patron of scientific research. He established the Loomis Laboratory in Tuxedo Park, New York, and his role in the development of radar and the atomic bomb contributed to the Allied victory in World War II. He invented the Aberdeen Chronograph for measuring muzzle velocities, contributed significantly (perhaps critically, according to Luis Alvarez) to the development of a ground-controlled approach technology for aircraft, and participated in preliminary meetings of the Manhattan Project. Loomis also made contributions to biological instrumentation. Working with Edmund Newton Harvey he co-invented the microscope centrifuge, and pioneered techniques for electroencephalography. In 1937, he discovered the sleep K-complex brainwave. During the Great Depression, Loomis anonymousl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
30 St Mary Axe
30 St Mary Axe (previously known as the Swiss Re Building and informally known as the Gherkin) is a commercial skyscraper in London's primary financial district, the City of London. It was completed in December 2003 and opened in April 2004. With 41 floors, it is tall and stands on the sites of the former Baltic Exchange and Chamber of Shipping, which were extensively damaged in 1992 in the Baltic Exchange bombing by a device placed by the Provisional IRA in St Mary Axe, a narrow street leading north from Leadenhall Street. After plans to build the 92-storey Millennium Tower were dropped, 30 St Mary Axe was designed by Norman Foster and the Arup Group. It was erected by Skanska; construction started in 2001. The building has become a recognisable landmark of London, and it is one of the city's most widely recognised examples of contemporary architecture. It won the 2003 Emporis Skyscraper Award. Site and early plans The building stands on the site of the former Baltic E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Energy Conservation
Energy conservation is the effort to reduce wasteful energy consumption by using fewer energy services. This can be done by using energy more effectively (using less energy for continuous service) or changing one's behavior to use less service (for example, by driving less). Energy conservation can be achieved through energy efficiency, which has a number of advantages, including a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, a smaller carbon footprint, and cost, water, and energy savings. Energy conservation is an essential factor in building design and construction. It has increased in importance since the 1970s, as 40% of energy use in the U.S. is in buildings. Recently, concern over the effects of climate change and global warming has emphasized the importance of energy conservation. Energy can only be transformed from one form to another, such as when heat energy is converted into vehicle motive power or when water flow's kinetic energy is converted into electricity in hydroelectr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Architectural Elements
:''The following outline is an overview and topical guide to architecture:'' Architecture – the process and the product of designing and constructing buildings. Architectural works with a certain indefinable combination of design quality and external circumstances may become cultural symbols and / or be considered works of art. What ''type'' of thing is architecture? Architecture can be described as all of the following: * Academic discipline – focused study in one academic field or profession. A discipline incorporates expertise, people, projects, communities, challenges, studies, inquiry, and research areas that are strongly associated with the given discipline. * Buildings – buildings and similar structures, the product of architecture, are referred to as architecture. * One of the arts – as an art form, architecture is an outlet of human expression, that is usually influenced by culture and which in turn helps to change culture. Architecture is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rainscreen
A rainscreen is an exterior wall detail where the siding (wall cladding) stands off from the moisture- resistant surface of an air/water barrier applied to the sheathing to create a capillary break and to allow drainage and evaporation. The ''rainscreen'' is the cladding or siding itself but the term rainscreen implies a system of building. Ideally the rainscreen prevents the wall air/water barrier from getting wet but because of cladding attachments and penetrations (such as windows and doors) water is likely to reach this point, and hence materials are selected to be moisture tolerant and integrated with flashing. In some cases a rainscreen wall is called a ''pressure-equalized rainscreen'' wall where the ventilation openings are large enough for the air pressure to nearly equalize on both sides of the rain screen,Brown, W. C, Rousseau, M. Z., and Dalgliesh, W. A., "Field Testing of Pressure-Equalized Rain Screen Walls," Donaldson, Barry, ed.. ''Exterior wall systems: glass and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Climate-adaptive Building Shell
Climate-adaptive building shell (CABS) is a term in building engineering that describes the group of facades and roofs that interact with the variability in their environment in a dynamic way. Conventional structures have static building envelopes and therefore cannot act in response to changing weather conditions and occupant requirements. Well-designed CABS have two main functions: they contribute to energy-saving for heating, cooling, ventilation, and lighting, and they induce a positive impact on the indoor environmental quality of buildings. Definition The description of CABS made by Loonen et al. says that:A climate adaptive building shell has the ability to repeatedly and reversibly change some of its functions, features or behavior over time in response to changing performance requirements and variable boundary conditions, and does this with the aim of improving overall building performance. This definition shows several components that conform CABS, and are addressed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heat Transfer
Heat transfer is a discipline of thermal engineering that concerns the generation, use, conversion, and exchange of thermal energy (heat) between physical systems. Heat transfer is classified into various mechanisms, such as thermal conduction, Convection (heat transfer), thermal convection, thermal radiation, and transfer of energy by phase changes. Engineers also consider the transfer of mass of differing chemical species (mass transfer in the form of advection), either cold or hot, to achieve heat transfer. While these mechanisms have distinct characteristics, they often occur simultaneously in the same system. Heat conduction, also called diffusion, is the direct microscopic exchanges of kinetic energy of particles (such as molecules) or quasiparticles (such as lattice waves) through the boundary between two systems. When an object is at a different temperature from another body or its surroundings, heat flows so that the body and the surroundings reach the same temperature, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar Gain
Solar gain (also known as solar heat gain or passive solar gain) is the increase in thermal energy of a space, object or structure as it absorbs incident solar radiation. The amount of solar gain a space experiences is a function of the total incident solar irradiance and of the ability of any intervening material to transmit or resist the radiation. Objects struck by sunlight absorb its visible and short-wave infrared components, increase in temperature, and then re-radiate that heat at longer infrared wavelengths. Though transparent building materials such as glass allow visible light to pass through almost unimpeded, once that light is converted to long-wave infrared radiation by materials indoors, it is unable to escape back through the window since glass is opaque to those longer wavelengths. The trapped heat thus causes solar gain via a phenomenon known as the greenhouse effect. In buildings, excessive solar gain can lead to overheating within a space, but it can also be us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shapes And Reflections, 30 St Mary Axe - Geograph
A shape or figure is a graphical representation of an object or its external boundary, outline, or external surface, as opposed to other properties such as color, texture, or material type. A plane shape or plane figure is constrained to lie on a ''plane'', in contrast to ''solid'' 3D shapes. A two-dimensional shape or two-dimensional figure (also: 2D shape or 2D figure) may lie on a more general curved ''surface'' (a non-Euclidean two-dimensional space). Classification of simple shapes Some simple shapes can be put into broad categories. For instance, polygons are classified according to their number of edges as triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, etc. Each of these is divided into smaller categories; triangles can be equilateral, isosceles, obtuse, acute, scalene, etc. while quadrilaterals can be rectangles, rhombi, trapezoids, squares, etc. Other common shapes are points, lines, planes, and conic sections such as ellipses, circles, and parabolas. Among the mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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