Serie Architects and Multiply add a net-zero-energy building to the National University of Singapore’s School of Design & Environment

Buildings.

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Rory Gardner

Designed by Serie Architects – which now has offices in London, Mumbai and Singapore – and Singaporean office Multiply Architects, with services engineering by Stuttgart-based Transsolar KlimaEngineering, the National University of Singapore’s new School of Design and Environment (SDE4) is the country’s first net-zero-energy building – one that generates at least as much energy as it uses, within its own footprint.

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The low-energy strategy and technologies adopted by the architect and engineer serve not only to reduce the building’s energy demand, but also to act as practical instruction for students in green design. “At their best, buildings that house schools of architecture and design strive to demonstrate and represent the pedagogical ambitions of the school itself”, says Serie director Christopher Lee.

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The south gardens are designed as a water purification system. Runoff from the roof and hardscape is cleansed by passing through soil, which removes sediments and soluble nutrients.

“This is evident in the Bauhaus building in Dessau that adopted the logic of industrial production; the open studio ‘trays’ for cross-disciplinary collaboration in Harvard GSD; or the bar and front members’ rooms as a social condenser at the AA.” SDE4 combines both energy-saving devices drawn from vernacular architecture and sophisticated energy-generation technologies, and acts as a “living laboratory for learning and testing various technologies and architectural responses to the harsh tropical climate”.

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The six-storey, 8500-square-metre building sits on a hillock along Clementi Road near the island’s south coast, and was built as part of a larger campus redevelopment. It comprises more than 1,500 square metres of design studio space, a 500-square-metre open plaza; a wide variety of public and social spaces; workshops and research centres; and a cafe and library.

An open social plaza and a circulation system that cuts across the different studios and classroom are intended to generate chaos and foster social interaction

It is designed to be flexible, supporting the school’s intention to promote new forms of teaching space as a scaffold for research. In the architects’ design competition entry, the building was envisaged as a porous structure accommodating a juxtaposition of ‘platforms and boxes’ that expressed its programme.

“Our ambition was to challenge the notion that a highly energy-efficient building has to be very opaque”, says Lee. “The completed building is incredibly open: it is able to reduce its energy demand, but at the same time it doesn’t end up being a very solid building”.

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The school’s form draws on traditional Malay houses, with an oversailing roof sheltering a “loose accumulation of rooms” to allow cross-ventilation, and the use of platforms to raise the building off the ground, says the architect. As well as providing shelter from the sun, the large roof allowed the installation of 1,225 photovoltaic cells for energy generation. Calculating the requisite quantity of panels took account both of the decline in their performance over time, and the predicted emergence of more energy-efficient devices – such as laptops – in the future, which should reduce energy demand.

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More than 50 per cent of the total area is naturally ventilated, and most of the rooms can be opened to prevailing breezes. Air conditioning is used only when needed, and Transsolar developed an innovative hybrid cooling system that supplies rooms with fresh pre-cooled air, albeit at higher temperatures and humidity levels than a conventional system, and compensates with an elevated air speed by use of ceiling fans. The cool circulating air provides comfort while the system delivers energy efficiency. The hybrid system is used to temper air in most study spaces, while conventional air conditioning operates in library and laboratory spaces.

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“Developing a net zero energy building is a challenge to the design process – how a team of client, architects and engineers approach problems in an informed manner”, says the engineer. To facilitate this process, Transsolar produced a ‘design table’ detailing the client brief, to be shared among the team and filled in step-by-step until it formed part of the tender documents for the contractor. The table documents all relevant client requirements – from room-by-room thermal comfort to occupancy schedules and plug loads – as well as specifications for facades and systems.

Based on the table, the operation of the building was digitally simulated, which informed architectural and engineering design decisions. The iterative design process was used “in order to find the best design solution but also to engage the client in revisiting and redefining objectives”, says the engineer.

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In learning spaces, elements of the perforated aluminium facade can be dismantled and replaced with new systems, so the building acts a a test-bed for green building technologies

Undulating perforated aluminium panels protect workspaces on the east and west sides from harsh tropical sun. The building is “open, transparent and comfortable, while at the same time requiring very little energy”, says Lee.

“As a whole the design is a revalidation of the grammar of tropical architecture that fuses new technologies and thinking about energy-efficiency in the tropics.”

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