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Dream & Realisation
Research Project
Future Systems, Project Zed, London, 1995
Team:
Frank Nederveen
Oliver Hames
Olivier Terrisse
Pieter Soetaert
Roy Nash
Sander Koper
Some general information:
In 1995 Future Systems designs three speculative mixed-used projects,
called Project Zed, for different cities in Europe. This is part of a research
development with fundings from the European Union. All three of the
buildings should be, besides being architectural inspiring, energy-efficient.
In London, they designed an elegant, steel-structured tower building with a
wind turbine in the middle of it. The form of the tower is designed to drive
the wind through the turbine in the centre.
Location:
The hole in the building is directed to the South-West.
N
Wind direction:
Most frequent available wind direction: South-West
(results only from the last two weeks)
Average wind speed:
January:
July:
4 m/s
5 m/s
(Results over the last 30 years)
Program:
The noise created by the turbine is reduced inside the offices by placing
service functions between the offices and the turbine.
Program:
Most of the floors are offices-floors, only the top layers are designed as
apartments. The form of the floor plans guarantees sufficient amounts of
daylight, also in the back of the offices.
Construction:
The building has a steel-based structure placed in the façade.
The structure can be divided in three parts:
- The lower part works as a table for the rest of the building.
- 2 Tube-constructions are containing the offices.
- The top part is ensuring the buildings stability.
Ways to look to wind speed in relation to the building mass:
The conservation of mass is a fundamental concept of physics. So at any
plane perpendicular to the center line of the tube, the same amount of mass
passes through which means that if the mass and the density stay the
same, the velocity has to increase when the area decreases, which is
exactly what happens in the hole of the future systems building. Here the
higher velocity in the inside of the hole is used to propel a wind turbine.
Ways to look to wind speed in relation to the building mass:
Program found at the website of the Glenn Research Centre by NASA which
is telling you the principles of wind speed around masses.
Task:
Our research task was to look at the influences of wind on the building by
testing it with a model in the windtunnel and by testing it with a digital 3Dmodel in a software program called Maya.
Working with the MAYA-model:
Testing the building under different angles.
Some effects visible in the MAYA-model can not be explained. So at these
particular points the simulation is not very realistic.
Making the model:
For making a difficult shape like the Zed building, we had to work with
many sections which were the floor plans that we drew with AutoCAD.
The floor plans formed a skeleton for the building. Afterwards we filled the
space in between with an other material. The in between material is foam
the rest is made of wood.
Working with the wind tunnel results:
We tested our building under different directions to see till what direction the
hole stays effective. It’s not possible to get measurable data about the wind
speed out of the test but the direction of the strings is telling us something
about the wind direction and the presence or absence of turbulences.
0 degrees
30 degrees
60 degrees
90 degrees
Front side of the model
Back side of the model
Front side of the model
Wind from left side
Working with the wind tunnel results:
What can we read out of the photos of the test? By using graphical
programs we can underline the density of the smoke. The differences of
density can give us an idea about the wind speed. For example: the
change of the direction of the curve tells us that the wind speed is changing
over there, although it is not giving us measurable data.
Conclusions:
- The movement of air is more unpredictable than expected! This means
that you should always check your design with a wind tunnel test.
- The simulation in MAYA has some truth in it, but while using it you should
always be aware of the side-effects in the program which are no reality
and for which we didn’t find the right settings to remove them. After all MAYA
is just an animation program and not an simulation program. Major
parameters:
viscosity (capability of air to follow the shape)
friction (friction between the air molecules)
damp (percentage of water in the air)
- The research started many discussions about wind in our group. Although
the wind is not a common subject in our field it gave us the opportunity to
introduce a new parameter to make architecture, especially considering
the demand of energy in the near future.