Combining passive and active systems in the built environment

Environmental, economic and social sustainability has been large concerns of a building. In a project on public buildings, the economic and social sustainability would be the main concerns for the clients. In recent years, more architects and clients understand and react to the importance of environmental sustainability of the built environment. In the previous student studio course, I had come across designing in a high performing building for a community centre and emergency accommodation. We collaborated with students from engineering and sustainable studies to complete the design of the building.

In order to achieve environmental sustainability, the aim of our building was to minimise usage of energy on thermal, lighting and material components. In the process, we propose many passive features such as angled window, cross ventilation design, hot air chute (combine with double façade system) and Trombe wall to achieve our thermal, lighting and ventilation goal. We focus on the HVAC system for our active systems, we propose water transition base HVAC system in order to reduce energy gain or loss during the transition. Active and passive chill beams system was the main HVAC system of the building which has smaller AHU and lowers energy consumptions.

While we were doing research for our actives systems, we came across the idea of combining passive and active system in order to achieve a more sustainable result or method. One idea we had was using underground energy since ground soil perform as a giant insulation at constant temperatures, we built a thermal labyrinth and geothermal water pipes to pre- situated our fresh air and water. In order to reduce the energy consumption of AHU, heater and chiller. Another system we applied in our design is Photovoltaic thermal hybrid solar Collector (PVT). The system combines solar heat pipe with PV panels, the panels were exposed to the maximum amount of direct sunlights with water pipes lay behind it to prevent the panels being overheated. The ‘heated water then connect to boilers in order to reduce the energy needed in boiling.

I think that sustainable design features should be further proposed to the society since the majority of society have the idea of being sustainable but still lacks in the action. When more sustainable features become popular and expose to the general public, the idea would be further spread into the society.  As it becomes more popular in building design, the built environment would be able to achieve a higher level of environmental sustainability.