Nature is the most dynamic and
ever changing thing I have come across. Even if people say the trees don’t
change and they are static, I would say they are dynamic too in their own ways.
Trees shed leaves, bear tender ones, and bear fruits and so on. Their colour
changes, looks and foliage changes. In short anything that stays the same for
ever or fails to change for real will fail to keep the interest on. To keep it
interesting and positive, everything needs to update and change. This is true
with architecture too; re painting a building once in a while doesn’t alone do
the magic any longer. Buildings should not be considered as a show piece in some
one’s curious rack.
And sometimes it’s just not the
case of interest or uniqueness alone; a dynamic building can make a structure
effective and climatically more viable and meaning full. Houses are often made
as strong and rigid as possible to defend and withstand the worst possible conditions
and situations it may came across, but what about the best and most desirable
situations? How can you prepare your building to embrace the good things that
nature throws at it, how to yield the best out of all the worst and good
situations around you? Through some demonstrations here I’m trying to solve
some of these problems. And when you go into modular or dynamic structures,
these issues should also be addressed, because from what I have seen most of
the modular approaches in architecture ends up in making refugee shelter or
shacks that looks like a portable toilets. Your building also needs a soul, it
should breathe and feel. Dynamism can also be achieved by understanding the
climatology of a place. Following are my illustrations.
1.1. Never get bored with a building layout, if
you can alter or vary the layout as per will. What if your living space patio
can also be used as your bedroom’s balcony when required, there by not changing
or increasing the total area or other parameters? Also in a typical building
there are spaces that are rudimentary, a space that is not required after a
certain point of time or not required until a certain point of time or
situation. In case of a bedroom that is being used only after late evening
hours, you don’t have to leave dedicated spaces which might be used only for a
certain short period after a particular point of time. For example a bedroom
need not have balcony all the time along, but it can borrow one from a living
space which might not be used after a certain hour. This way the whole design
is made efficient and kept dynamic and the illustration shown above is
demonstrating this phenomenon.
1.2. The idea explained previously can also be enhanced
to meet the mood and emotional requirements of an entire residential unit as in
case of a flat or condominium. You wake up one morning and decide to take your
entire house up a couple of storeys, an act that would change your house for
once without changing it for real. The same can also be done if you wish to
bring it down a couple of storeys. It’s an increasing phenomena these days,
were all the city dwellers prefer to keep their flat units as higher up as
possible, to avoid pollution and also for a better view and emotional state.
Also the top storeys are in turn more expensive than the lower units. The
illustration shown here is an attempt to demonstrate the dynamism and variation
that you can achieve by relocating you residential units at will.
1.3. Normally with pitched roof and with properly
designed gable opening it has the advantage of expelling the hot air and
letting in cooler air from outside. This happens when the comparatively lighter
hot air rises up and is sucked out owing to the wind flowing through oppositely
placed gable openings combined with pressure variation, void thus created will
be occupied by comparatively cooler air. This however is not desirable when the
temperature go really low. Under low temperature the process needs to reversed
and hotter air is preferred in the occupant spaces. This can be mechanically
achieved by lowering the ceiling height and thus pushing the air back in the
occupant space. This is demonstrated in the above illustration.
1.4. Gables are very effective ways to ensure
proper air circulation. But the proper placement of gable requires some
calculation and orientation adjustments. But it is normally not possible when
or dealing with row housing, closely packed housing communities and similar
situations. In such cases it will be more effective if the roof can transform
itself to ensure air circulation as shown above. This is in effect a temporary
air scoop.
1.5. Flat roofs and pitched ones have their own
set of advantages under different situations. If there is way to combine both
or by introducing some mechanical adjustments or levers to facilitate the transition
between both, an efficient and one of a kind roofing system can very well be made
possible. The demonstration showed here is an illustration of the above
mentioned idea. In case of summer and in arid situations high roofs or pitched
ones are preferred. The same can have an adverse effect in winter. Situations
were hotter or comparatively warmer air is preferred in the occupant areas,
flat roofs are found more effective.
1.6. Images
shown here explain the most familiar facts about climate oriented designs. The
first image shows how a normal window with normal overhang is susceptible to glares
and reflected heat rays. The second image shows how a raised window eliminates
reflected rays and lower level louvers ensure circulation of cooler air through
occupant areas as cooler air is heavier. The reflected rays and excess heat can
also be defended by using an extra half wall which is placed at a distance from
the support wall thus leaving a space in between, this would act like trees
placed closed to the building with adequate space to channel air in to the
building and not limiting them.
1.7. Flat roofs are not effective solution when
the requirement id to invite more air in to the building, and this case is more
severe when it comes to closely packed neighbourhoods. The solution will be to
add a lifted up air scoop as shown in the figure which will in turn develop enough
suction to guide out the comparatively hotter air trapped in the room and thus
cooling the room.
1.8. Metal cladded buildings in the world are
considered bad for the environment. These building are known to have altered
the micro-climatic conditions of cities and thus raising its temperature and so
on. Naturalists and environmentalist movements have become a regular sight in
such metal cladded neighbourhoods. But when you think about it a little bit
more, this problem itself carries the solution for the situation. Applying the
general laws of physics, what I have learned here is metal clads can in turn
work in reverse pattern to lower the temperature of a building’s inside. The
above shown image explains how this work. The heat from the sun when falls on
the metal surface, raises the temperature of the air close to it steeply thus causing
it to rise up because the air has become lighter now, eventually as the
temperature raises further this process becomes more spontaneous and the speed
of the upward air movement increases. Under this situation if there are
perforations provided on the room’s wall, just like air holes, the comparatively
hotter air inside the room will be sucked out with the hotter air trapped
between the clad and the wall. To accelerate this process an air exhauster can
also be added in the gap. Thus the process can be successfully reversed to cool
the air inside.