Queen’s Building Sustainable Architecture
Introduction
The Queen’s Building is the School of Engineering and Manufacture found at de Montfort University in Leicester. This piece of architecture was completed in 1993 (Asbridge and Cohen, n. d). The designers of Queens Building were Short Ford Associates architects and Services Engineers Max Fordham and Partners (Asbridge and Cohen, n.d.). The main purpose of the building was to provide daylighting, natural ventilation, and passive solar design (Asbridge and Cohen, n.d.). Presently, the building can hold up to 1500 students and provide academic facilities for the same. According to Compton (2006), the Queen’s Building was required to deal with the heat produced by its 1,500 occupants and the electrical equipment installed therein. The campus on which the Queen’s building stand was put up was experiencing environmental morale problems. Therefore, the architects of the building had to ensure that it was naturally conditioned (Compton, 2006). The architects were also looking to construct a facility that was naturally ventilated and one whereby occupants could access daylight; conditions which could eliminate the providence of air-conditioning, thus reducing reliance on electric lighting (New Practice Case Study, 1997).
The Concept of Strategic Design
The design of a building plays a major role when it comes to fulfilling its ventilation purposes (Lomas, Cook and Fiala, 2006). The Queen’s Building is 10000 m2 and it ‘comprises of the central building, mechanical laboratories, and electrical laboratories; with a full-height concourse situated in the central building that acts as a light well and a thermal buffer zone for adjoining spaces’ (Asbridge and Cohen, n.d., p.1). The floors are made of concrete slabs while the walls are made of fair-faced bricks and blocks.
Natural ventilation reduces the cost of installing manmade ventilation which is costly (Lomas, Cook, and Eppel, 1999). The floor plan was designed to facilitate natural ventilation (Compton, 2006). As seen earlier, the building houses the electrical and mechanical laboratories. The floor plan for the labs is narrow and has operable windows that facilitate cross-ventilation (Compton, 2006). The Queen’s building has a central space (building) with a wider floor plan. Consequently, windows alone are not enough to provide sufficient cross-ventilation, and hence the provision of eight, large chimneys used for exhaustion of warm stale air (Compton, 2006). The stale air comes from the occupants and appliances such as the computers. The chimneys operate under the influence of the stack effect. Differences in temperature between the air at the top and bottom of the flue and the air outside cause warm air to vent out which in turn draws cool air in, thus cooling the building (Compton, 2006). The chimneys were structurally constructed in order to cut costs.
The walls are an integral part of any building (Lomas, 2006). The Queen’s building was designed to be environment-friendly and to use naturally occurring forms of energy. Therefore, its walls had to be constructed in such a way as to act as thermal regulators (Asbridge and Cohen, n.d.). The walls are constructed of ‘bricks which act as a thermal wrapper, buffering the building from temperature peaks at midday’ (Campton pg 2, 2006). The Queen’s building is used for learning purposes and as such it is important that it offers users an environment conducive for learning. The bricks act as noise barriers, keeping the noise contained in the mechanical labs, such that other students and staff members are not distracted (Compton, 2006). The University aimed at creating employment during the construction of the Queen’s building, and this informed their choice of the load-bearing brick façade. The cavity walls are wide and insulated. The ceiling is made of the latter plus concrete slabs which create a thermal mass that in turn absorbs heat in the daytime when the building is occupied, and releases it during the night when the building is unoccupied (Compton,2006).
The Queen’s building has three parts, with the first part housing the two wings of the electrical laboratories. The more the floors increase, the more the floor plan increases, minimizing the direct sunlight penetrating the floors of the Laboratories (Compton, 2006). Direct solar gain is decreased by the small windows which have deep reveals. There are spaces in the deep reveals that have shelves that bounce the daylight off the ceiling. The light is bounced into the lower levels by the white-painted walls of the courtyard. The second part houses the central building whose roof is broken up for the purpose of natural lighting, thus reducing the need for electrical lighting (Campton, 2006). All other spaces such as the auditorium, and computer labs use side lights for lighting purposes.
The third part of the building houses the mechanical lab whose large windows allow for natural daylight without much glare (Compton, 2006). The key design strategies for the building were daylighting, thermal mass, and natural ventilation (Compton, 2006). These strategies have been discussed in the above paragraphs and each has been illustrated as to how it was put to use.
Conclusion
The first part of this paper outlines the objectives for the construction of the Queen’s Building which were to provide daylighting, thermal mass, and natural ventilation. From the discussion above and the credible sources that have been used, it can be concluded that the Queen’s Building met its objectives. The students and the staff confirm that the building offers a desirable working environment, despite the fact that it lacks a mechanical cooling system (New Practice Case Study 102, 1997). Thermal comfort is an important design condition whereby the air outside could be used to achieve indoor cooling (Orme, 2000). The Queen’s building has provided for the above thus achieving that objective. Energy efficiency is an important aspect of any building (Elsadig, 2005). The energy costs are halved with daylighting reducing the need to use electric light (New Practice Case Study. 1997). A survey was conducted among the students and the staff regarding the three main objectives and the results were better than those of national benchmarks (Asbridge and Cohen, n.d.). Sustainability is the act of a building retaining its purpose with minimal errors (Jabareen, 2011). Although there are shortcomings, the Queen’s Building has continually achieved architectural sustainability.
References
Asbridge R., and Cohen R. nd. ‘Probe 4: Queens Building.’ Usable buildings. [Online].
Compton M. C. 2006. ‘Queen’s Building. DeMontfort University.’ WebPages. [Online].
Elsadig A.K., 2005. Energy Efficiency in Commercial Buildings. [Online].
Jabareen Y., 2011., Teaching Sustainabilty: A Multiisciplinary Approach. The journal of Creative Education/ Scientific Research, 2(4), 1-5.
Lomas, K.J. , 2006. Architectural design of an advanced naturally ventilated building. Elsevier. [Online]
Lomas, K. J., Cook, M. J., and Fiala, D., 2006. Low energy architecture for a severe US climate: Design and evaluation of a hybrid ventilation strategy.’ Elsevier. [Online]
Lomas, K.J., Cook, M. J., and Eppel, H., 1999. Design and operating concept for an innovative naturally ventilated library. Proceedings of the CIBSE National Conference, Heritage, UK, 3rd-5th October 1999, pp. 500-507.
New Practice Case Study 102. 1997. ‘The Queens Building: De Montfort University- feedback for designers and clients.’ EEBPP-NPCS-102.PDF. [Online]
Orme, M.S., 2000. Advances in Natural Ventilation Design Procedures. Elsevier Sciences Limited. [Online]
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