Building Science 1 ARC2413

Project 1: Case Study [Identifying Innovative Passive Design Strategies]

The main idea of this project is to enable us to identify and define the principles of heat transfer in relation to building and people and also, to understand what is thermal comfort and discuss factors relating to thermal comfort. 

Hence, we were grouped into six and required to choose one building in Kuala Lumpur and one building in Singapore that best feature a passive design strategy for tropical climate. This time, we have chosen Changi Airport which situated in Singapore and Setia City Convention Centre at Shah Alam as our buildings to study.

Images below show my selected buildings on this project:

Changi Airport, Singapore

Setia City Convention Centre, Shah Alam

Feel free to read my report over here, Case Study of Changi Airport, Singapore

                     and                                      Case Study of Setia City Convention Centre, Shah Alam

In a nutshell, throughout this project, I was able to analyse the effect of thermal comfort factors in a person and in a space. Besides that, I was also truly understand what passive design strategies are. Passive design is a kind of design that does not require mechanical heating or cooling. It also means that, buildings that passsively designed often take advantage of natural climate to maintain their thermal comfort. Furthermore, I realized that design nowadays is not only about form and space planning. It is also about the facts of how user experience a space. Yes, an interesting design of a building often attracts users. However, to ensure user feel comfortable in a building is also an important fact, too. Thus, a smart design of building which can achieve its thermal comfort level and sustainability at the same time, is always needed. Lastly, I found that Ecotech is a very useful software that help us to analyse the building software. I hope that I will have more time to further explore on this software in the future.

  

Learning Outcomes of this project:

1. Identify environmental conditions related to site conditions, climate, etc. 

2. Explain the effects of the sun on the thermal performance of buildings. 
3. Explain the effect of insulation, thermal mass and air movement on thermal performance of buildings.