With an attendee list of approximately 1,200 individuals, this event is a hive of opportunity.
The idea of designing for COVID is very compatible with sustainable design’s broader focus on health and wellbeing, and ties in nicely with the WELL Building Standard.This American rating system, launched in 2013 and now in the UK, challenges the built environment from a wellness perspective, while the UK’s earlier environmental assessment method, BREEAM, also places some attention on things like thermal comfort and air volumes.
In the case of designing for COVID, the most obvious starting point is to look at the airflow of a building — how it might move through an office floor plate, for example.Here, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) offers us a way to address the challenge using a process based on mathematical modelling..Passive design measures also form a key part of a sustainable design strategy.
We must consider elements such as building orientation, the optimisation of facades to balance seasonal heat loss and gain, enhancing daylight and using natural or mixed-mode ventilation.To truly achieve sustainability in design, we should use passive design measures as much as we can to address health and wellness related challenges, as we search for a balance between wellness and energy efficiency.
If we’re pumping air into our buildings to make sure the environment is clean, are we wasting energy?
Focusing on sustainability in design with passive design measures can help us rely less on mechanical systems.Structures contribute to approximately 10% of the overall embodied carbon on a DC project, making it important to explore options that enhance design sustainability through material reduction..
Examples of typical options we analyse to optimise the design:.Different equipment selections –.
We test different options to find a balance between cost, energy usage and performance.. Cooling unit positioning –.Our analysis ensures an even distribution of cool air is provided to maximise cooling efficiency, in both normal and failure scenarios..