I am trying to figure out how to maximize transparency for a project in the arctic. Given the extreme conditions of the arctic, deploying a strategy of high surface area of transparency is a big no-no.
what are some strategies that i can use to have transparency but minimize heat loss?
citizen
Mar 26, 16 7:13 pm
I'd think double-glazing at least.
Donna Sink
Mar 26, 16 7:49 pm
The bigger problem in the arctic is getting the building supplies to the site. It's unbelievably expensive to get materials there; every single thing has to be accounted for; there can be no waste.
Big sheets of glass are notoriously difficult to move.
Does that help you think about it in more out-of-the-box ways?
Edited to add: what is the goal of the transparency? Solar gain? View?
Josh Mings
Mar 27, 16 10:31 am
I'd add don't have glazing on north side and any other instance of winter prevailing winds, add wind breaks around the site, so on and so forth. Look at JVA's work on Svalbard.
Josh Mings
Mar 27, 16 10:31 am
I'd add don't have glazing on north side and any other instance of winter prevailing winds, add wind breaks around the site, so on and so forth. Look at JVA's work on Svalbard.
bowling_ball
Mar 27, 16 10:52 am
We need a lot more details. Program? Location? Scale? Budget? Client/ demographic? I'm guessing that this is a student project.
The simple answer is that glazing should be minimal to conserve energy, but there are many reasons to use glass that can throw off that balance.
Without knowing any details of your project, I'll just throw this out there - a double facade is interesting as a system and can work well in northern climates.
had a case where we considered the proximity of the radiators to the large windows, our concern was the har difference possibly cracking the glass, how close can you put a radiator to a large piece of glass with temp. difference of 100+ fahrenheit
Volunteer
Mar 27, 16 1:25 pm
A maritime arctic location like Tromso, Norway, may be significantly warmer than an inland location slightly below the Arctic Circle, such as Fairbanks, Alaska, so you really must factor in the specific location you are planning for. Needless to say, you will not be getting any solar gain in the winter months because there is no sun
.
Wood Guy
Mar 27, 16 4:24 pm
batman, logistics aside, triple-glazed windows intended for Passive House (or Passivhaus) construction are the highest-performing, easily available windows you can get. They typically seal very tightly and have U-values down to 0.09, the equivalent of R-11, which is terrible as far as wall R-values go, but it's pretty amazing for a window. Here is one brand I have a fair amount of experience with: http://performancebuildingsupply.com/products/building-materials/intus-windows/.
For any insulated glass window, the glass performs better than the frame, so maximize the size of the glass and minimize the number of units for best thermal performance. (Taking into account Donna's advice about transportation logistics.) I have moved 10' x 10' Passive House windows that were shipped across the Atlantic in a shipping container; they required 8 strong guys to move them but it was possible.
If your goal is simply to get light into the building and this is theoretical so cost is no object, consider Nanogel, which provides high levels of insulation and allows translucent light to filter through: http://cantifix.co.uk/component/nanogel/.
You simply can't design a building with lots of glazing that would actually perform well and be comfortable in the arctic, so another tack to take would be to maximize what glazing you do have by reflecting what light does enter. Transom windows up high on a wall with a light shelf below will let light bounce off the light shelf, reflecting it to the ceiling, where it refracts back down to the living or working space. Using transom windows allows the lower part of the wall to be usable, minimizing floor area, and the walls can be insulated to at least R-60 which is what you would want in that climate.
Wood Guy
Mar 27, 16 4:27 pm
I'd add that with a true high-performance building, wind has very little impact on performance. It might be a good idea to use windbreaks for exterior usability or for impact resistance, but if the building is essentially airtight with a high-quality cladding, wind won't degrade performance significantly.
Donna Sink
Mar 27, 16 6:02 pm
Oooooh Nanogel. That would be cool.
Wood Guy, your comment reminded my of Solatubes. Not nearly so cool as Nanogel, of course! But they do bring a TON of light in using a very small opening AND the tube can be angled and go through a very thick amount of insulation. I've always thought an undulating ceiling just studded full of Solatubes would look cool, something like a poor man's version of Piano's California Academy of Sciences.
Wood Guy
Mar 27, 16 8:09 pm
Donna, that could look pretty cool. Solatubes' energy performance is still dismal but I bet there's a way to improve it, assuming this is a theoretical project. I haven't used them in a long time but I hear they now have integral LED lighting so you get the same effect day or night.
batman
Mar 27, 16 10:03 pm
thanks for the replies, guys.
yes, this is a student project. Just trying to test the limits of glass and thermal comfort.
for better reference - the project will be sited in Ny - Alesund on the archipelago of svalbard.
5 months of the year there is midnight sun and another 5 months there is polar night. The building will be mainly used during the months of Midnight sun (where there is sun 24 hours)
i was looking into a double facade, like the strategy used in Nelson-Atkins Museum by Steven holl. dont know how i can test if this double facade system will work in super cold climates..
bowling_ball
Mar 28, 16 12:00 am
Give us some climatic data. The link I posted shows a double facade working extremely well in a city much colder than your location.
That location looks like somewhere around 12,000 to 13,000 heating degree days. That's cold but with annual temps ranging from -14°F to 60°F it's not that bad. Even with the sun low on the horizon, with 24-hour sun and a good building envelope, you could heat a small building with solar energy and internal loads (people, computers, appliances).
There is energy efficiency and then there is thermal comfort. Thermal comfort has a lot to do with the mean radiant temperature of the interior surfaces of a building. On bare skin, you need the interior surfaces to be above 60°F (16°C) or else that surface will feel like it's drawing heat away from you, because it is. You also want all of the surfaces in a room to be within a few degrees of each other, or you will feel the difference. If you've been near a hot woodstove or radiator in a room heated to room temperature, you know what I mean. The rest of the room feels cold in comparison.
The magic of triple-glazed windows is not only do they perform well, but the interior surface stays much warmer than double-glazed glass. It's the same idea as an envelope house (aka double-wall house) except you're compressing the envelope down into a couple of centimeters. There is no performance advantage of going from the 2-cm space of triple-glazing to the 2-meter space of an envelope building; in fact, the latter is much more difficult to control and the interstitial space will almost always be either too hot or too cold for comfort, with spontaneous convection currents (from the temperature differential between interior and exterior walls) degrading performance. Argon-filled spaces less than 2cm thick (a typical gas filling for multi-glazed windows) do not develop spontaneous convection currents. I can see architectural reasons for the glass envelope, but not performance reasons.
There are now coatings (atomized metals) that can be applied to the interior surface of the glazing that help keep energy from leaving the building. They have been available for a long time as "low-E" or "low-emissivity" coatings for any of the interior surfaces of a multi-glazed unit, but it's a new concept to use them on the exposed surface. With any low-e coating, you have to balance how much heat (radiant energy) you want to enter the building vs. how much you are willing to reflect back to the outdoors.
Don't let all this science stifle your creativity, but also don't let creativity stop you from learning the science behind the buildings you are designing.
Volunteer
Mar 28, 16 11:44 am
Here are some photos of what is already there:
BulgarBlogger
Mar 28, 16 6:33 pm
Why use glass? Why can't you use acrylic? What is the U-Value of acrylic compared to glass? I'm sure you can get insulated acrylic panels...
Volunteer
Mar 28, 16 7:26 pm
The site is quite historical. Roald Amundsen left there for a trip to the North Pole in 1926 in an airship. The mooring mast for the airship is still in the settlement. There was also a coal mine nearby that had a bad accident with severe political blowback for the government. Lastly, this particular part of the Artic seems pretty well supplied by ships.
Peter Normand
Mar 28, 16 9:55 pm
The coal mine is a Russian Possession if I remember the rest is part of Norway. There are still Russian troops guarding the Soviet era coal mining town. Also this island is home to a lot of polar bears, make sure the ground floor windows and the windows reachable by snow drifts are sturdy. Be aware of predator ambush situations make sure doors and approaches have clear views and no obstructions where bears might hide.
I would think that glass within glass is how you would need to work. In these kind of environments people never leave their homes without jackets or layers and so allowing circulation areas and storage areas to be in the outer colder layers may be a strategy. a hall and lobby can be allowed to get cold but not an office or meeting room. Look into heating places where people work not the whole space. If you have a lobby with reception just heat the reception desk, people arriving won't shed coats until they are at their desk or in a seat in an auditorium. In cold environments people never stray far from their coats.
Check this out it was designed by one of my professors many years ago
BulgarBlogger, neither glass or acrylic have any significant insulating qualities on their own. They block the wind but that's about it. What does the insulating is the air trapped between layers of glass. Argon or other heavy, noble gasses are often used between sheets of glass, largely because their density minimizes convection currents from developing inside the air space.
There may be reasons to use acrylic glazing but the arguments against it are that glass is less expensive, less environmental impact (silica-based vs. petroleum-based), stays clear indefinitely without UV stabilizers, and glass is actually stronger than acrylic, especially if tempered. Acrylic has little structural integrity in the thicknesses used for glazing, and would bow and warp with changes in temperature.
Volunteer, great photos. I love the simple forms and bright colors that people in far northern climates all seem to use.
JLC-1
Mar 29, 16 10:30 am
I know you're batman, but you should look at the fortress of solitude. S.
Volunteer
Mar 29, 16 4:30 pm
Here is a photo of Bergen, on the main part of Norway. Note the numerous skylights. My favorite country!
StarchitectAlpha
Mar 30, 16 12:02 pm
Oh if this is school, just "I was celebrating the environment and bringing into the interactive space, completely eliminating past confines and performance expectations"
Reviewer "stupendous"
You "there of course is no budget and any semblance of known construction techniques so this building is pure fancy. We designers shouldn't be held back by such things as code and the general public approval."
Reviewer "yes of course! continue, man this guy really gets it"
You "juxtaposition, threshold, Chinese proverb, intertwining, parti, sequence of spaces, contrasting expectations"
Reviewer "I may never have worked in a firm ever but you are truly our star pupil!!!!!!"""
I am trying to figure out how to maximize transparency for a project in the arctic. Given the extreme conditions of the arctic, deploying a strategy of high surface area of transparency is a big no-no.
what are some strategies that i can use to have transparency but minimize heat loss?
I'd think double-glazing at least.
The bigger problem in the arctic is getting the building supplies to the site. It's unbelievably expensive to get materials there; every single thing has to be accounted for; there can be no waste.
Big sheets of glass are notoriously difficult to move.
Does that help you think about it in more out-of-the-box ways?
Edited to add: what is the goal of the transparency? Solar gain? View?
I'd add don't have glazing on north side and any other instance of winter prevailing winds, add wind breaks around the site, so on and so forth. Look at JVA's work on Svalbard.
I'd add don't have glazing on north side and any other instance of winter prevailing winds, add wind breaks around the site, so on and so forth. Look at JVA's work on Svalbard.
We need a lot more details. Program? Location? Scale? Budget? Client/ demographic? I'm guessing that this is a student project.
The simple answer is that glazing should be minimal to conserve energy, but there are many reasons to use glass that can throw off that balance.
Without knowing any details of your project, I'll just throw this out there - a double facade is interesting as a system and can work well in northern climates.
http://manitobahydroplace.com/Integrated-Elements/Double-Facade/
had a case where we considered the proximity of the radiators to the large windows, our concern was the har difference possibly cracking the glass, how close can you put a radiator to a large piece of glass with temp. difference of 100+ fahrenheit
A maritime arctic location like Tromso, Norway, may be significantly warmer than an inland location slightly below the Arctic Circle, such as Fairbanks, Alaska, so you really must factor in the specific location you are planning for. Needless to say, you will not be getting any solar gain in the winter months because there is no sun .
batman, logistics aside, triple-glazed windows intended for Passive House (or Passivhaus) construction are the highest-performing, easily available windows you can get. They typically seal very tightly and have U-values down to 0.09, the equivalent of R-11, which is terrible as far as wall R-values go, but it's pretty amazing for a window. Here is one brand I have a fair amount of experience with: http://performancebuildingsupply.com/products/building-materials/intus-windows/.
For any insulated glass window, the glass performs better than the frame, so maximize the size of the glass and minimize the number of units for best thermal performance. (Taking into account Donna's advice about transportation logistics.) I have moved 10' x 10' Passive House windows that were shipped across the Atlantic in a shipping container; they required 8 strong guys to move them but it was possible.
If your goal is simply to get light into the building and this is theoretical so cost is no object, consider Nanogel, which provides high levels of insulation and allows translucent light to filter through: http://cantifix.co.uk/component/nanogel/.
You simply can't design a building with lots of glazing that would actually perform well and be comfortable in the arctic, so another tack to take would be to maximize what glazing you do have by reflecting what light does enter. Transom windows up high on a wall with a light shelf below will let light bounce off the light shelf, reflecting it to the ceiling, where it refracts back down to the living or working space. Using transom windows allows the lower part of the wall to be usable, minimizing floor area, and the walls can be insulated to at least R-60 which is what you would want in that climate.
I'd add that with a true high-performance building, wind has very little impact on performance. It might be a good idea to use windbreaks for exterior usability or for impact resistance, but if the building is essentially airtight with a high-quality cladding, wind won't degrade performance significantly.
Oooooh Nanogel. That would be cool.
Wood Guy, your comment reminded my of Solatubes. Not nearly so cool as Nanogel, of course! But they do bring a TON of light in using a very small opening AND the tube can be angled and go through a very thick amount of insulation. I've always thought an undulating ceiling just studded full of Solatubes would look cool, something like a poor man's version of Piano's California Academy of Sciences.
Donna, that could look pretty cool. Solatubes' energy performance is still dismal but I bet there's a way to improve it, assuming this is a theoretical project. I haven't used them in a long time but I hear they now have integral LED lighting so you get the same effect day or night.
thanks for the replies, guys.
yes, this is a student project. Just trying to test the limits of glass and thermal comfort.
for better reference - the project will be sited in Ny - Alesund on the archipelago of svalbard.
5 months of the year there is midnight sun and another 5 months there is polar night. The building will be mainly used during the months of Midnight sun (where there is sun 24 hours)
i was looking into a double facade, like the strategy used in Nelson-Atkins Museum by Steven holl. dont know how i can test if this double facade system will work in super cold climates..
Give us some climatic data. The link I posted shows a double facade working extremely well in a city much colder than your location.
http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Svalbard/Ny-%C3%85lesund/statistics.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/greenhouse-idea-grows-in-far-north/article4421650/?service=mobile
http://foodtank.com/news/2014/09/iyff-arctic-greenhouse-grows-greens-year-round
May want to check those out.
That location looks like somewhere around 12,000 to 13,000 heating degree days. That's cold but with annual temps ranging from -14°F to 60°F it's not that bad. Even with the sun low on the horizon, with 24-hour sun and a good building envelope, you could heat a small building with solar energy and internal loads (people, computers, appliances).
There is energy efficiency and then there is thermal comfort. Thermal comfort has a lot to do with the mean radiant temperature of the interior surfaces of a building. On bare skin, you need the interior surfaces to be above 60°F (16°C) or else that surface will feel like it's drawing heat away from you, because it is. You also want all of the surfaces in a room to be within a few degrees of each other, or you will feel the difference. If you've been near a hot woodstove or radiator in a room heated to room temperature, you know what I mean. The rest of the room feels cold in comparison.
The magic of triple-glazed windows is not only do they perform well, but the interior surface stays much warmer than double-glazed glass. It's the same idea as an envelope house (aka double-wall house) except you're compressing the envelope down into a couple of centimeters. There is no performance advantage of going from the 2-cm space of triple-glazing to the 2-meter space of an envelope building; in fact, the latter is much more difficult to control and the interstitial space will almost always be either too hot or too cold for comfort, with spontaneous convection currents (from the temperature differential between interior and exterior walls) degrading performance. Argon-filled spaces less than 2cm thick (a typical gas filling for multi-glazed windows) do not develop spontaneous convection currents. I can see architectural reasons for the glass envelope, but not performance reasons.
There are now coatings (atomized metals) that can be applied to the interior surface of the glazing that help keep energy from leaving the building. They have been available for a long time as "low-E" or "low-emissivity" coatings for any of the interior surfaces of a multi-glazed unit, but it's a new concept to use them on the exposed surface. With any low-e coating, you have to balance how much heat (radiant energy) you want to enter the building vs. how much you are willing to reflect back to the outdoors.
Don't let all this science stifle your creativity, but also don't let creativity stop you from learning the science behind the buildings you are designing.
Here are some photos of what is already there:
Why use glass? Why can't you use acrylic? What is the U-Value of acrylic compared to glass? I'm sure you can get insulated acrylic panels...
The site is quite historical. Roald Amundsen left there for a trip to the North Pole in 1926 in an airship. The mooring mast for the airship is still in the settlement. There was also a coal mine nearby that had a bad accident with severe political blowback for the government. Lastly, this particular part of the Artic seems pretty well supplied by ships.
The coal mine is a Russian Possession if I remember the rest is part of Norway. There are still Russian troops guarding the Soviet era coal mining town. Also this island is home to a lot of polar bears, make sure the ground floor windows and the windows reachable by snow drifts are sturdy. Be aware of predator ambush situations make sure doors and approaches have clear views and no obstructions where bears might hide.
I would think that glass within glass is how you would need to work. In these kind of environments people never leave their homes without jackets or layers and so allowing circulation areas and storage areas to be in the outer colder layers may be a strategy. a hall and lobby can be allowed to get cold but not an office or meeting room. Look into heating places where people work not the whole space. If you have a lobby with reception just heat the reception desk, people arriving won't shed coats until they are at their desk or in a seat in an auditorium. In cold environments people never stray far from their coats.
Check this out it was designed by one of my professors many years ago
http://www.assembly.gov.nt.ca/visitors/our-building
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Territories_Legislative_Building
http://www.panoramio.com/user/4963270/tags/Northwest%20Territories?photo_page=2
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g154966-d3472872-Reviews-The_Legislative_Assembly_Building-Yellowknife_Northwest_Territories.html
Over and OUT
Peter N
BulgarBlogger, neither glass or acrylic have any significant insulating qualities on their own. They block the wind but that's about it. What does the insulating is the air trapped between layers of glass. Argon or other heavy, noble gasses are often used between sheets of glass, largely because their density minimizes convection currents from developing inside the air space.
There may be reasons to use acrylic glazing but the arguments against it are that glass is less expensive, less environmental impact (silica-based vs. petroleum-based), stays clear indefinitely without UV stabilizers, and glass is actually stronger than acrylic, especially if tempered. Acrylic has little structural integrity in the thicknesses used for glazing, and would bow and warp with changes in temperature.
Volunteer, great photos. I love the simple forms and bright colors that people in far northern climates all seem to use.
I know you're batman, but you should look at the fortress of solitude. S.
Here is a photo of Bergen, on the main part of Norway. Note the numerous skylights. My favorite country!
Oh if this is school, just "I was celebrating the environment and bringing into the interactive space, completely eliminating past confines and performance expectations"
Reviewer "stupendous"
You "there of course is no budget and any semblance of known construction techniques so this building is pure fancy. We designers shouldn't be held back by such things as code and the general public approval."
Reviewer "yes of course! continue, man this guy really gets it"
You "juxtaposition, threshold, Chinese proverb, intertwining, parti, sequence of spaces, contrasting expectations"
Reviewer "I may never have worked in a firm ever but you are truly our star pupil!!!!!!"""