RAC Facades

RAC Facades: Retrofit Active Cooling Facade System for Tropical High-rise Residential Buildings

Yong, Benjamin (TU Delft Architecture and the Built Environment)

Prieto Hoces, Alejandro (mentor)
Janssen, Christien (mentor)

Delft University of Technology

Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Building Technology | Sustainable Design

2019-07-04

The aim of this paper is to design a retrofit façade-integrated cooling system for built high-rise residential public housing buildings in the tropical climate and evaluate its feasibility. Literature research into the climate, building design, cooling technologies and case studies of façade-integrated systems were important factors that led to the conceptual designs. Energy calculations and parametric optimization through Rhinoceros + Grasshopper were conducted to develop the façade concepts to suit the cooling load of the chosen building. Material and component costs were calculated to evaluate which façade concept proposal was more suitable and what design constraints were introduced by the limited available physical space. With a chosen façade concept, minor tweaks were made to account for additional issues such as conduction heat loss and the oversizing of components. Façade details with respect to structural elements, moving parts, system operation and maintenance procedures were developed. The overall implications and limitations of the design were discussed with the aid of daylighting simulations and extrapolative calculations to paint a broader picture of its overall feasibility and what it takes to be realized.

Desiccant Cooling
Facade Design
Residential High Rise
Night Cooling
Tropical

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:092be184-361d-4a14-8b3c-5c59612659e4

Student theses

master thesis

© 2019 Benjamin Yong