Intelligent skins Butterworth-Heinemann Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP 225 Wildwood Avenue, Woburn, MA 01801-2041 A division of Reed Educational and Professional Publishing Ltd A member of the Reed Elsevier plc group First published 2002 © Michael Wigginton and Jude Harris 2002 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright holder except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, England W1P 0LP. Applications for the copyright holder’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publishers British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 0 7506 4847 3 For information on all Architectural Press publications visit our website at www.architecturalpress.com Produced and typeset by Gray Publishing, Tunbridge Wells, Kent Printed and bound in Italy Intelligent skins Michael Wigginton and Jude Harris OXFORD AUCKLAND BOSTON JOHANNESBURG MELBOURNE NEW DELHI Contents Acknowledgements vi Preface The origins of this book vii Picture acknowledgements viii Chapter 1 Introduction 3 Chapter 2 The environmental context and the design imperative 7 Chapter 3 Buildings and intelligence: metaphors and models 17 Chapter 4 The intelligent skin: the deepening metaphor 27 Chapter 5 Method 36 Chapter 6 Features 39 Chapter 7 The future 43 Chapter 8 The case studies 45 Case study 1 GSWHeadquarters 49 Berlin Case study 2 Debis Building 55 Berlin Case study 3 Commerzbank Headquarters 59 Frankfurt-am-Main Case study 4 Stadttor (City Gate) 65 Düsseldorf Case study 5 GlaxoWellcome House West 71 Greenford Case study 6 The Environmental Building 75 Garston Case study 7 Helicon 83 London Case study 8 Tax Office Extension 87 Enschede Case study 9 Headquarters of Götz 93 Würzburg iv Contents Contents – continued Case study 10 Phoenix Central Library 99 Phoenix, Arizona Case study 11 The Brundtland Centre 103 Toftlund Sønerjylland Case study 12 The Green Building 109 Dublin Case study 13 Heliotrop® 115 Freiburg-im-Breisgau Case study 14 Villa Vision 121 Taastrup Case study 15 Business Promotion Centre 125 Duisburg Case study 16 School of Engineering and Manufacture 129 Leicester Case study 17 SUVAInsurance Company 137 Basel Case study 18 Solar House Freiburg 143 Freiburg C ase study 19 Design Office for Gartner 149 Gundelfingen/Donau Case study 20 TRON– Concept Intelligent House 155 Tokyo Case study 21 Super Energy Conservation Building 159 Tokyo Case study 22 Occidental Chemical Center 163 Niagara Falls, New York Selected bibliography 169 Definitions 171 Index 175 Contents v Acknowledgements The authors owe a huge debt of gratitude to the designers, On a personal note, much gratitude is due to our colleagues, building owners and users associated with each of the case study who have supported us both through the original research, and buildings who have answered questions, and provided guided through the task of turning the work into a book, as well as our tours, drawings and photographs for their project, enabling us to families who inevitably have had to live with the efforts. portray our ideas of the intelligent building and its envelope – the The project would not have started without a grant of ‘seed intelligent skin. Every architect and engineer named in the case funding’ by the Higher Education Funding Council or England studies has contributed enormous effort, and exhibited tremen- under the DevR scheme, and we remain very grateful for that dous patience, as we have sought to ensure the proper, accurate, original impetus, and to the University of Plymouth for its continued and full representation of their work. In this sense the book is a support. co-operative effort, although we ourselves must take the blame for any inaccuracies. vi Acknowledgements Preface: the origins of this book This book has its origins in two sets of ideas. The first comes out being defined as a façade incorporating variable technology which of research carried out in the early 1980s during the preparation would amend itself to provide comfort conditions inside the build- of my book Glass in Architecture. In a lecture at the RIBA given ing whatever the external environmental conditions might be, in in 1985, called ‘Glass Architecture and the Thinking Skin’, the idea any particular building location. It was accepted at the outset that of new building skin technologies assisting in the evolution of this would have to be ‘demonstrated’ to be economically viable, responsive buildings was set out as an ‘end-piece’ to the lecture. and it was based philosophically on the principle that buildings This itself was not new, and had been promoted by architects and for much of the twentieth century had developed design paradigms engineers for some time, in the UK most notably by Michael Davies such that the morphology and construction of a building was and others who had realized the potential of the new glasses and designed to suit a set of functional and aesthetic objectives, often control technologies. Work on the technical content of Glass in not environmentally driven, only for engineers to be asked to Architectureundertaken during the late 1980s, made evident the correct the environment by the incorporation of environmental worldwide efforts of designers to develop what were named systems, which themselves required large and unnecessary ‘complex multiple skins’ in my research. amounts of energy. The second origin lay in a ‘low energy’ Diploma studio taught Considerations of an ‘intelligent building’ thus offered the at the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture in the Robert potential for the development of buildings where variable building Gordon University in Aberdeen in the early 1990s. With the fabric, integrated with good ‘passive’ design, could redistribute assistance of such distinguished engineers as Tom Barker of Ove investment cost from building services into building fabric, and thus Arup & Partners, and Max Fordham of Max Fordham & Partners, reduce energy costs in use, and (it was hoped), total life-cycle it became quite clear that, whilst buildings could be devised for costing. very low energy in use, varying diurnal and seasonal conditions While the 10-stage programme was intended to include studies made the design of purely passive buildings (that is, buildings of modelling, prototype evaluation, and a variety of other which could sit, inert, and maintain comfort, day and night, activities, the first appropriate task was considered to be a case throughout the year), virtually impossible if ‘zero-environmental- study review. energy’ was an objective. The demands made upon the building Funding was provided for this by the University of Plymouth fabric required the proposition of variable envelopes a prerequisite when I became Head of the School of Architecture in 1996. This to the creation of a building with very small provision of environ- enabled Jude Harris to join the research team working on the mental services, or perhaps no provision of some of these at all. newly conceived programme, and this book is the outcome. In the project studies forming the Diploma Programme it was Interest in the subject area has grown, partly as a result of the evident that, for example, the thermal transmittance of the building dissemination of the work we have done since the programme skin should have a different value at different times if stable started. The European Union research programme known as thermal conditions were to be held inside the building without the ‘COST C13: Glass and Interactive Building Envelopes’, is a four- importing of energy to drive a heating or cooling system: this year international programme, started in October 2000, involving requirement for a building to ‘open up’ or ‘close down’ has obvious 16 nations so far, including the USA represented by Lawrence relationships in the optical actions of the human eye, which we Berkeley Laboratories. The Management Committee, on which I close when we wish to sleep, and the iris of which ‘stops down’ serve, is progressing the search for useful and viable interactive the pupil automatically in bright light. The possible absence of a façade design. The Committee includes architects, building human operator to produce this action, and the sometimes physicists, and engineers, including representation from most of counterintuitive nature of the action, suggested that the building the important national research centres in Europe. This effective- ought to be intelligent enough to know what to do in different ly moves the idea of the intelligent façade out of the world of circumstances in order to maintain its ‘metabolism’ at levels fantasy and into the world of real building. The search for the consistent with comfort for its human occupants. intelligent skin is on. Consideration of these two study programmes provided the basis for a research programme devised in 1995 named the Michael Wigginton Intelligent Façade Programme. This was a 10-stage programme Plymouth intended to investigate the feasibility of the intelligent façade, this Preface vii Picture acknowledgements The authors and publisher are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce material in this book. Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders and any rights not acknowledged here will made in future printings if notice is given to the publishers. Chapter 1 Drawing by Petzinka Pink und Partner, Dusseldorf (p. 2) Occidental Chemical Center: Barbara Elliott Martin/Cannon Design (p. 3) Chapter 2 View of Paris smog: Sunset/FLPA – Images of Nature (p. 6) The Dordogne: Michael Wigginton (p. 6) Oil refinery: Michael Wigginton (p. 7) Wind turbine: Michael Wigginton (p. 8) Chicago office buildings: Michael Wigginton (p. 11) Thai village house: Michael Wigginton (p. 11) SUVA Building (Case Study 17) Before: Herzog & de Meuron/Ruedi Walti (p. 13) SUVA Building (Case Study 17) After: Herzog & de Meuron/Ruedi Walti (p. 13) Chapter 3 The Sky Lab: NASA/Michael Wigginton (p. 16) Control thermometer: Robert Gray (p. 18) Fridge/freezer controls: Michael Wigginton (p. 19) City Place: Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), Chicago (p. 21) Deer: Corel (p. 23) Plants: Corel (p. 23) Human shoulder: Michael Wigginton (p. 24) Chapter 4 Tennis player (Tim Henman): Birmingham Photo Library (p. 26) Human skin: Science Photo Library (p. 28) Human eye: Michael Wigginton (p. 29) Chiddingstone Street with blind/curtains: Michael Wigginton (p. 30) House for the Future: National Museums & Galleries of Wales (p. 32) Roof-mounted photovoltaics (SUVA Building, Basel): Jude Harris (p. 33) Chapter 6 Case Study 6: Dennis Gilbert/VIEW (p. 39) Case Study17: Herzog & de Meuron/Ruedi Walti (p. 40) Case Study 19: Firma Gartner/Pancho Balluveg/Karsten de Riese/Werkfoto Gartner (p. 40) Case Study 12: Murray O’Laoire Architects (p. 40) Case Study 4: Jude Harris (p. 41) Case Study 11: KHR AS Arkitekter/Bruntland Center Danmark (p. 41) Case Study 16: Alan Short (p. 41) Case Study 22: Barbara Elliott Martin/Cannon Design (p. 41) Chapter 7 Photovoltaics on the Space Shuttle: NASA/Michael Wigginton (p. 43) Case Study 1 Photos: Annette Kisling, Berlin; Butter + Bredt, Berlin; Kisling und Bruns, Berlin. Drawings: Sauerbruch Hutton Architects viii Picture acknowledgements Intelligent skins Case Study 2 Photos: M Denancé; E Cano; V Mosch; Berengo Gardin. Drawings: Renzo Piano Building Workshop Case Study 3 Photos: Ian Lambot; Jude Harris. Drawings: Foster & Partners Case Study 4 Photos: Jude Harris; Petzinka Pink und Partner. Drawings: DBZ/DS Plan Case Study 5 Photos and drawings: RMJM. Case Study 6 Photos: Dennis Gilbert/VIEW; Jude Harris. Drawings: Feilden Clegg Architects; Building Research Establishment Case Study 7 Photos: Sheppard Robson; Peter Durant. Drawings: Sheppard Robson Case Study 8 Photos: Ooerlemans van Reeken Studio/Robert Ooerlemans; Buro Solo Delft. Drawings: Ruurd Roorda Case Study 9 Photos: Andreas Lauble; Jude Harris. Drawings: Webler + Geissler Case Study 10 Photos: Bill Timmerman Case Study 11 Photos: KHR AS Architekter; Bruntland Center Danmark. Drawings: KHR AS Architekter Case Study 12 Photos: Murray O’Laoire Associates. Drawings: Murray O’Laoire Associates Case Study 13 Photos: George Nemec, Merzhausen; Jude Harris. Drawings: Rolf Disch Case Study 14 Photos: Dansk Architektur Center; Gammel Dok; Flemming Skude. Drawings: Flemming Skude and Ivar Moltke Case Study 15 Photos: Dennis Gilbert/VIEW. Drawings: Foster & Partners; John Hewitt Case Study 16 Photos: Alan Short (Short Ford & Associates); Jude Harris. Drawings: Short Ford & Associates Case Study 17 Photos: Schmidlin; Herzog & de Meuron; Ruedi Walti; Jude Harris. Drawings: Herzog & de Meuron; Schmidlin Case Study 18 Photos: A Berghoff; Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. Drawings: Hölken & Berghoff Case Study 19 Photos: Firma Gartner; Sigrid Neubert; Pancho Balluveg; Karsten de Riese; Werkfoto Gartner; Jude Harris. Drawings: Hölken & Berghoff Case Study 20 Photos: Ken Sakamura. Drawings: TRON Intelligent House Case Study 21 Photos and drawings: Ohbayashi Corporation Case Study 22 Photos: Barbara Elliott Martin; Cannon Design; Michael Wigginton. Drawings: John Hewitt Picture acknowledgements ix