Designing kinetic facades for fully glazed buildings: achieving daylight optimization and cooling load reductions

Jalal Semaan, Fan Wang

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

This paper reports a study on design process that integrating various modelling techniques to optimise a kinetic façade system design to achieve energy efficiency and quality lighting and thermal indoor environment. The aim of the study is to develop such a process that is feasible to be used in design firms for every kinetic façade design project, as such a system needs optimisation to gain its full potential the GCC region.
The proposed design process utilizes commercial software capable of producing algorithmic rapid data needed to assess useful daylight and cooling loads simultaneously. The devised algorithmic process is aided by the actual geographic location under a realistic sun-path system, in order to simulate instant variable shading configurations. The resultant Kinetic Facade was applied to an assumed base case typical fully glazed building model located in Abu Dhabi to assess the viability of the design, where 25% in cooling load reductions was achieved. The Kinetic facade was further compared to another model with Static Louvers where it outperformed the latter annually by 25% in terms of useful daylight illuminance and 6% in terms of cooling load reductions. The quantitative results of this research had proven that the proposed design process had produced accurate design data that was used to achieve daylight optimization and cooling load reductions simultaneously.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 12th Conference on Advanced Building Skins
PublisherAdvanced Building Skins
Pages707-718
Number of pages12
ISBN (Print)9783952488317
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2017
Event12th Conference on Advanced Building Skins - Bern, Switzerland
Duration: 2 Oct 20173 Oct 2017

Conference

Conference12th Conference on Advanced Building Skins
Country/TerritorySwitzerland
CityBern
Period2/10/173/10/17

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