Energy

It’s Also a Smart Building

Aquatics Centres require a lot of heating, but by cladding the building in high tech ETFE cushions, it will be a very efficient green house. Twenty per cent of the solar energy falling on the building is trapped within the building and is used to heat the pools and the interior area. This is equivalent to covering the entire roof in photovoltaic panels.

By cladding the building in ETFE cushions, the Centre will be well lit during the day, with appropriate levels of internal daylight, visual connection and visual comfort. Up to 55 per cent savings on lighting energy use can be achieved in the leisure pool hall, with smaller savings expected in other areas.

The system presents the opportunity to generate an effective negative U value or a net energy gain to the building. For this principle to work effectively, the design needs to ensure that the amount of solar load entering the building offsets the heat losses. Ideally, the heat entering the building would balance the heat loss. In reality, however, some days may have more heat coming in than leaving; other days may have greater heat loss that heat gain. This leads to heating and cooling of the space respectively. To compensate for this variation in heat load, the design makes use of two key passive thermal design strategies:

- Thermal mass heat storage
- Shading design that changes with the seasons

Thermal mass heat storage

The use of thermal mass heat storage ensures that heating by the sun during the day is offset by overnight cooling. The thermal mass of the swimming pool water and heavy weight surfaces surrounding the pool, effectively store the excess heat during the day and re-emits this heat at night, minimising the variation in load.