Week 3

 Site Considerations and Building Enclosure 

Gina Christopher

BUILDING SYSTEM OVERVIEW

A building system is composed of multiple building systems that all work together and must be carefully coordinated. Traditional systems include structural systems, MEP systems, enclosure systems, and interior systems.

THE SITE

The architect is responsible for placing the building on the site while considering all factors such as sun, wind, views, regulatory concerns, environmental issues, and aesthetics. How a building is placed on a site also impacts the interior. Serval factors can impact comfort within a building including as solar orientation, site appurtenances such as trees, wind-blocking landscape, views, and other site features. If an interior designer is brought on to a project early in the design phase, they may be able to have input into window placements. 

ENCLOSURE SYSTEMS 

Although interior designers do not design foundations of building exteriors, an understanding of construction terminology is helpful. Foundation systems carry all the loads in a building safely to the ground. Shallow foundations are typically used in residential construction, while deep foundations are used for larger buildings. Shallow foundations include slab-on-grade, crawl space, matt/raft foundation, continuous wall footing and basement. Deep foundations include caissons, piles, and sub-structure. 

EXTERIOR MATERIALS AND ROOFS

There are several different exterior cladding materials that can be used to cover stud walls, structural frame walls, and structural insulated panel walls. These materials include Hoffman Green Cement, Mark West Watershed Block, CalPlant, and Recycled Plastic Cladding. Roofs come in many shapes including shed, gable, flat, gambrel, hip, low sloped, thatched, and more. Interior designers do not pick the roof, but they respond to the shape of the roof as it impacts the interior. Roof faming materials include wood, metal, and concrete. There are many framing features such as truss shapes, roof framing, and roof tops. Truss shapes include Belgian, bowstring, fink, and scissor. The rafter ends of roof framing can either be exposed or boxed. 

A Cupola is a small structure on the roof that is used to increase ventilation but now is mostly used for decorative purposes. Roofs come in many materials such as asphalt, wood shake, tile and slate.

A monitor is a raised section in the center of a building to create better lighting inside. 

A parapet is used in historic downtown settings often; it is a wall raised about the roof to conceal the roof from the street view. 

SUSTAINABLITY

When considering sustainability material choice matters. Sustainable material choices include recycled rubber shingles, cement board shingles, sustainably harvested wood products, recycled metal products, tile, slate, and green roofs. Sustainable systems are also a good choice such as living machine, water recycling, and Xeriscape. Living machine is a wastewater treatment system that mimics a wetland environment. Rainwater catchment systems that collect storm water runoff can be used as an irrigation source and save water. Xeriscape is a landscape in a style which requires little or no irrigation, this conserves water. 

HARM WEBER BUILDING 

CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS 

The dominant building material is concrete due to the purpose of thermal mass. Thermal mass is a key component of the natural ventilation system. The ceilings and walls are mostly exposed. The exterior walls are stick framed extensions about 4 feet from the pre-cast walls. This allows for the chase spaces for the vertical air flow in the natural ventilation system. The exterior finish material is brick veneer at the lower level and a combination of EIFS and metal panels at the top. Another key feature is the glazed atrium in the middle of the library/studio element that serves a lighting system and primary conduit of fresh air supply. 

NATURAL VENTILATION DESIGN  

The building draws cool air at the lower level, circulates this air throughout the facility through various routes, and ultimately exhausts the air through the roof. The combination of these elements creates a stack effect which both draws and exhausts naturally buoyant warm air. In the library/studio element, the stacks are imbedded in the perimeter walls. In the bar element, the stacks are located along the south façade. The CFD model demonstrates the directional air flows following the designed paths of the intake and exhaust in each of the spaces throughout the building.

DAYLIGHTING 

Two primary strategies to harvest daylight into the building are a significant amount of glazing and a deep exterior envelope poche. The cavity in the building produces a light shelf surface that bounces light from the tapered sill to the ceiling spaces within, allowing both ambient and indirect lighting, harvesting light through multiple means.

SITE DEVELOPMENT & ECOLOGICAL LANDSCAPE IMPROVEMENT 

The design solution includes moving a large parking lot to a perimeter location which is almost completely screened from view but still close by. The parking lot was replaced with a sustainable landscape “quadrangle” scheme that incorporates a series of complementary ecological elements including down lighting, storm water flow, control and storage, bioswale elements filtering phosphorous and other ground water pollutants, infiltration through retention and permeable surfaces, with resultant evapo-transpiration.