For the past couple of weeks, our Systems class has been working on integrating systems knowledge into our current Studio Arch projects. Specifically we have been trying to integrate ideas and strategies that affect our designs in terms of: daylight, ventilation, and thermal quality. The following diagrams have been the result of this analysis.
This semester, our computerless Studio has focused on the design of a Pod Hotel on a site adjacent to the High Line Park in New York City. At the same time we have been creating public spaces that can serve both hotel guests, and city dwellers & tourists. Specifically, our studio design approach has been to create “an interesting section” that isn’t static but is rather evocative in terms of its design, and the spaces we can create sectionally. The hotel spans a full nine floors, whereas the public space (through which the section drawing is cut) spans four floors.
The first set of diagrams are longitudinal section cuts of the Public Spaces within the Pod Hotel, as well as administrative space. The public spaces include the hotel Lobby, a hotel Bar, a public Restaurant, and a large space that serves as a Ballroom during the day, and a Night Club in the sky during the night. There also exterior spaces available for seating, that vary throughout the time of the year. The diagrams have been divided by two main seasonal changes, according to when the sun reaches its peak points in the sky – Summer and Winter Solstice.
In this first diagram, “Daylight & Wind Analysis – Summer Solstice”, the focus was on depicting the typical lighting conditions on a sunny day in New York. Most of the public rooms are mainly lit up through an indirect lighting strategy, with the exception of the rooms located towards the north facade. These rooms receive their light from artificial lighting sources because of the nature of these rooms. The intent was to create the typically low light bar during the summer so as to retain the feeling of a cold space, without any added heat from direct sunlight. The 4th floor Ballroom would get much indirect light from the north and south sides because of its height (17 feet), but also because it has an operable skylight (not depicted by the section cut) that brings in some direct light if desired. Not only that, but the overall lighting strategy for this building has been to create floor to ceiling windows that allow direct light to come into the different spaces, but more importantly it allows for more indirect light to penetrate into the spaces. Furthermore, the spatial zone that spans from the hotel lobby up to the glass skylight above the restaurant floors, serves to bring in direct light into a large interior atrium space. From thereon light can also be dispersed indirectly to the spaces immediately surrounding the interior atrium. In addition, there is a nine story light well that serves to bring light into the corridor spaces of the Pod Hotel. As a final touch, the cantilever formed by the ballroom/night club on the northern end of the building creates a shaded zone underneath it. This ends up making that frontal zone a “cool seating area” during the summer when New York can get extremely hot. Conversely the southern end courtyard gets flooded with much direct light, and therefore heat. However the intent was to have people interact more in the northern end seating area as opposed to the enclosed southern end courtyard.
In terms of thermal quality for these public spaces, they intent is to design it as a fully closed envelope with Low E glass, and high thermal mass materials such as stone and concrete. In fact, the floor slabs would be constructed with concrete and then topped with stone tiles. Underneath these tiles there would be a system of radiant heating and cooling pipes that would be monitored closely. In terms of air flow, a wind shaft has been design along the light well that would allow for warm air to travel upward and be dragged out through the stack effect. (Detail drawing shows the wind shaft). This wind shaft is connected to the interior atrium, which is in fact the sectional hearth to the restaurant, lobby, and bar. This wind shaft would only be active during the Summer when warm air would most likely accumulate in that atrium space. In the winter time it would be closed, and building ventilation and thermal comfort would rely on high thermal mass materials (i.e. concrete), radiant heating and cooling, a well thermally insulated shell with minimal thermal bridges, and HVAC systems. Unfortunately the current state of our studio design curriculum did not lend it self to technical drawings of wall composition and thus, the avoidance of thermal bridges isn’t depicted. However this is the intent.
There aren’t too many differences between the summer and winter time. The main differences are the sun angles that affect some of the space usage, as well as the already mentioned air shaft that gets closed. So in this second diagram, “Daylight & Wind Analysis – Winter Solstice”, one of the issues I address is the large floor-to-ceiling windows, which now lend themselves to winter sun glare. I solve this issue by having mechanical shades come down to a certain distance, which would reduce this glare. Another issue was the creation of a “Cold Zone” in the northern exterior seating space of the building (due to the lack of sun light, as well as the now added winds that come from the North-West). Although the tower does stop some of the western winds, the space would still get very cold. However, this ends up being a favorable emergent design solution because it would perhaps force people to come into the hotel bar to “warm up” (and hopefully contribute some business). It would also provoke a greater use of the southern exterior courtyard which would basically get no wind at all and, it would get much indirect sunlight in the form of reflected light from the floor-to-ceiling windows above the space.
Another issue I address is the Light Well not being able to bring in as much light into the hotel corridors or the interior atrium, as it does in the summer and the late spring/early fall. Yet the winter sun angles would bring in enough light into the atrium through the skylight in the center. As a solution for the corridors, I decided to make the southern end of the corridor become a full glass facade, so as to all for as much southern light as possible. This is not visible in the section cut, but if you follow the floor plate lines of the corridor down to the southern end, and then contrast that angle to the sun rays in the diagram, you would see how far direct sunlight would get down that corridor. The remained of the corridor would have natural indirect light fill it in, as well as some hidden artificial lights towards the northern end.
The detail drawings depict the system interactions of the more private spaces of the hotel, the single pod unit. These units are located on the West side of the public spaces. In the previous diagrams, one can see the stairs that lead people up into the corridors that correspond to each pod unit. You can also see the concrete slab on that diagram, where the light well comes down. The cross section cut of the pod unit occurs down the middle of the light well/air shaft. In this cross section cut one can see how the warm air would flow up through that shaft that would get smaller as it moves upward per floor (so as to create a Venturi effect). In the plan, the large “X” represents the void of the shaft. The arrows are entrances to the pod.
The way in which the lighting works for the pod units varies a lot throughout the year. In the mornings, no direct sunlight would come in through the Western light well. Rather indirect light would come in through that light well, which is located on the head rest of the bed (the indirect light label that is on top). The light well works through the material arrangement, by having the concrete walls be of a light color that could easily reflect light into the room. This light well also serves as a window where one could see the sunset in the evenings from their bed, as well as have some direct sunlight stream in during the afternoons, which could also be shaded if need be. But to return to the original point, direct sunlight doesn’t come in through the western light well, but rather it comes into the corridor space on the eastern light well. No pods get direct morning light at any time during the year, and at first glance this might seem like a troubling issue. However these pods are meant to be used in the evenings and night time for sleeping only, not necessarily meant for dwelling or watching the sunrise.. If people wish to continue sleeping in the morning they won’t be bothered by the sun. If they need to wake up, they’ll set an alarm or receive a wake up call.
In the end the systematic design strategies work out to produce intended intentions, and unintended positive surprises.
Cheers