One city

Project 1 : Case Study: Identifying Innovative Passive Design Strategies

Building science ( ARC 2413)Tutor : Mr. Prince

Chu Szi Wei 0314160 Christiody 0304191 Poh Ziyang 0807P68823 Sean Hiu Ji Ren 0309874 Soe Woei hao 0309924 Usman Farooqi 1102p11235 William Yap 0314127

One City Mall(Malaysia)

Chu Szi Wei 0314160 Christiody 0304191 Poh Ziyang 0807P68823 Sean Hiu Ji Ren 0309874 Soe Woei hao 0309924 Usman Farooqi 1102p11235 William Yap 0314127Page 3

Introduction (Malaysia)

Malaysia located in South China Sea in the heart of South East Asia. Malaysia is divided into two geographical section which is Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysian (Sabah Sarawak in North Borneo). 40% of Peninsular Malaysia is Landmass. There are several mountains ranges running north south along the backbone of the peninsula. 60% of the country is still rainforest. There are forest covering over half of Malaysia with notable Tropical forest in Sabah and Sarawak.

West coast consist of mangrove swamps and mudflats which separate into bays and inlets. The major island are Langkawi, Penang, Pangkor of the west coast, Redang, Tioman, Kapas, Perhentian and Rawa off the east coast.

Malaysian Borneo, Sarawak has alluvial and swampy coastal plains with rivers along the jungle and mountains. Sabah has coastal plain which gives way to mountains and jungle. For example Mount Kinabalu at 4094m height (13,432ft) and the height of Mount Kinabalu became the highest peak in Malaysia. (Figure 1)

Figure 1. Map of Malaysia (Location)



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Malaysia is Hot and Humid all year around. The wettest season on West coast of the peninsula is between September and December. On the East Coast and Sabah and Sarawak, it’s between October and February. Besides that, Rain comes in short terms, strong burst and hide the sun on temporarily.

From one of the sample chart of Malaysia Climates Graph (Figure 2), Malaysia weather benefits from a tropical climate with high temperature and high humidity throughout the year. The Daytime temperatures of Malaysia rise above 30°C and at the night time the temperature rarely drop below 25°C. On the other hand, the relative humidity level in Malaysia is between 55% - 70% . On March is particularly humid and very uncomfortable.

Figure 2. Malaysia Climate Graph

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1.0B Project Description

Located in Subang,One City Skyparkstands out as one of few high rise building among the surrounding housing areas. From afar it looks like a rectangular cuboid decorated with green stripes though make no mistake as having being completed last year (2013) , it is the only one of its kind in Malaysia. Standing a total of 10 stories high, it seeks to blur the lines between modern architecture and the essence of mother nature as this building is proof that a sustainable building need not be all funky but can also take on a more simple and suddle form.

One City Skypark was given the Green Building Index Silver award,by the Malaysian government. Green Building Index (GBI) is Malaysia’s green rating tool for both towns and buildings, created to widespread the idea of sustainability in the built-environment and to raise awareness of environmental issues amongst the construction and design community as well as the public such that a brighter and greener future for future generations can be archived. This award is separated into a few levels of achievement such that of certified, silver, gold and platinum. With the latter being the best One City Skypark is second runner up from platinum though that itself is a great achievement as the building must fulfill a range of 66 to 75 points in order to get the certification of silver ranking.

Figure 1.0B Green Building Index Logo

Figure 1.1B GBI Certification Proof

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The GBI Silver was accredited to One City Skypark because of its unique sustainable designs such as:

1) The usage of a vertical green wall to cover the wind channels as well as aid in cutting down the heat island effect generated by the building.

2) The placement of water features parallel to that of the layout of the building to act as a heat sink in which will aid in cooling the building via evaporation as well as conduction between the stone floor.

3) Implementation of wind channels that provide the building with a natural ventilation which lowers the overall humidity and promoting evaporation which in return cools the building

4) Usage of large skylights on the 10th floor as means of natural lighting.

Figure 1.2B Wind Channels

Figure 1.3B Skylights

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In a way these features help reduce the energy required for the building to function and provide thermal comfort to its users , in return the cost required to ventilate and light the building is also greatly reduces. Thus with all these features in place only is One City Skypark able to obtain a Silver GBI.

Design Concepts

Figure 1.4B Green Wall

Figure 1.5BWater Features

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Standing tall at 10 stories high and being the only highrise building in the surrounding area , One City Skypark stands proudly acclaiming no resemblance to the surrounding context without even so much as blend into the surrounding housing areas. It has its first 4 floors dedicated to shop-lots allowing visitors to indulge in food, fitness and leisure such that of a cinema and a gym on the 4th floor. The remaining 6 floors however are reserved for offices and meeting rooms in which makes up of more than 50% of the people in the building, lastly the 10th floor is the sky-roof in which visitors can stand and walk on the massive skyline. The roof I also host to 2 restaurants which only open at night which takes advantage of the stunning night view.

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Having being built to express the harmony between modern architecture and mother nature, One City Skypark makes sure that its concrete and glass façade blends well with the flat green wall such that they don’t seem out of place. The box like form of One City Skypark also allows the designer to play around with having vertical glass windows paning across horizontally. The interior however is like that of a layered cake, each floor is layered and stacked such that the horizontality is not broken. This creates a big contrast between both the interior and exterior, as thefaçade has a vertical element whereas the interior is more of a horizontal element.

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Figure 1.8B Ground Floor

Figure 1.9B Ground Mezzanine Floor

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Figure 1.18B Roof Garden Floor

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3.0 Wind Analysis

Figure 3.0 Wind rose at Kuala Lumpur

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The wind rose indicates the wind frequency by hours for the whole year from different directions. Besides, it shows the wind speed distribution from less than 10km/h to 50km/h in the circular graph. The lighter the colour the more hours the wind is coming from that particular direction and particular speed. We can learn from the diagram that the wind is coming from all directions almost equally, but slightly more from South East direction. The frequency of wind speed is higher in the range of 10km/h to 30km/h. As a matter of fact, Kuala Lumpur is a windy area, as indicated as the many hours of prevailing winds.

Ventilation in buildings serves three main purposes. First is to maintain a minimum air quality, where 1-2ac/h is sufficient. Second is to remove heat, 2-15ac/h is needed normally. Third is to provide perceptible air movement to enhance thermal comfort, where 0.5-2m/s of air speed is needed.

Natural ventilation is preferred as it has lower running cost, zero energy consumption, low maintenance and lower initial cost. It is also considered healthier and more natural and is seen as a psychological benefit. There are two types of natural ventilation, the first type is wind-driven and the other is stack effect.

Cross Ventilation

Cross ventilation is induced by wind pressure. When the wind pressure difference is low, there will be little ventilation. As there is no high buildings around the One City Mall, it is unobstructed by the prevailing wind, which is good. For cross ventilation to be effective, the depth of the building should be less than 5 time the floor/ceiling height. In One City Mall, the ratio of depth of building (from east to west, 160 meters) to the east-west opening height (65 meters) is about 2.5, which is more than sufficient for natural cross ventilation to occur. Besides, there are two large openings at in the North-South direction, with depth to height ratio of about 1.1, which in theory helps the natural ventilation if there is prevailing wind. As wind speed and direction is variable, the more opening area is distributed, the more likely it is that there will be a pressure difference between openings to drive the flow. Hence, these narrow openings do help in ventilating the atrium.

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Figure 3.1 Third floor plan showing the naturally ventilated atrium and the openings at the prominent east and west facades. North and south façade have narrow openings for ventilation too.

As suggested by the windrose, the more prominent cross ventilation is from east to west. However, cross ventilation from all other directions are important too.

Figure 3.2: Cross ventilation caused by the different in wind pressure

Stack Ventilation

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At the same time, the tall atrium has created stack effect, where thermal buoyancy is created due to the difference in indoor-to-outdoor air density caused by the temperature and moisture difference.The taller the atrium and the bigger the temperature difference between the lower air space and the higher space, the larger the buoyancy force, and hence the stronger the stack effect. As the air at the higher atrium space trapped and warms up by the skylight, it became less dense than cooler air outside, and thus will try to escape from openings high up in the building envelope, like roof opening around lift shafts and higher wall openings. Cool denser air due to lesser exposure of sun will enter the openings at the lower part. This process will continue if the air entering the building is continuously heated caused by the solar gains from the glass roof.

As stack ventilation can operate when no air pressure is available (no prevailing wind), it is important to maintain minimum air quality and to remove heat and moisture. We can see that One City is not purposely designed for optimal stack ventilation, although stack ventilation should naturally occurs in the tall atrium of the building. The higher temperature at the top floor atrium is undesirable, as it heats up the air-conditioned shop lots at the same floor level. This can be solved by providing a higher atrium than the occupied floor and let the warm air to maintain well above its occupants.

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Figure 3.3 & Figure 3.4 Higher atrium should be more appropriate for stack ventilation as it does not heat up the upper shop lots and circulation spaces.

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4.0 Sun Analysis

As Kuala Lumpur is located just 2°30’ north from the equator, the sun at noon is always above our head and tilts slighted towards north in months close to June and tilts towards south in months close to December. The morning and evening sun is always on the east and west respectively and just slightly tilted towards south or north depending on months.

The long axis of the One City Mall is running east-west and the short axis is running north-south. This configuration is ideal in Kuala Lumpur as the low morning and evening sun ray is always hitting the building envelop at east and west facades, and hence heating up the east and west facades. The noon sun is always almost above the building and heating up the roof.

Figure 4.0 Annual sun path at the One City Mall.The blue and red curves at the bottom of the circle indicate the sun angles at two solstices.

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Figure 4.1 5pm in 21st JuneSolstice (the sun reaches its highest excursion relative to equator and has the longest day light hours)

In June solstice day, the sun is at the north side of the building. In the afternoon the sun warms up the north façade at the same time causing glare in the building. The excessive heat and glare can be shaded by vertical shading devices which is absent in the One City Mall.

Figure 4.2 5pm in 21 December Solstice (the sun reaches its lowest point and the day light hours is at its shortest).

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In December solstice day, the sun is at the south side of the building. As oppose to the June’s sun path, the sun warms up the south façade in the afternoon and at the same time causing glare in the building. Just as the north façade, the installation of vertical shading devices can reduce heat and glare on the south facades in months close to December.

Figure 4.3: Surface insolation of the One City Mall

Surface insolation analysis shows the distribution of incident radiation over the building facades. The total radiation received by the building is mostly on the roof of the building by a large margin. It shows that the roof received more than 1959000Wh/m2 of total radiation over a period of a year, while the façade just receive about 200000Wh/m2 of total radiation, which is about 10 times less radiation than the roof. This analysis exposes the weakness of the building design, which uses large panel of glass roof. As the single glazed skylight has very low R-value (thermal resistance), the heat can penetrate into the building easily and heats up the atrium. This generally creates a large glass house effect to traps heat and cause thermal discomfort to the occupants. Although some parts of the roof are designed as green roof, which itself is a good thermal insulator, the skylight seems to negate its function as roof thermal insulation.

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Figure 4.4 Daily direct and indirect solar insulation in Kuala Lumpur shows that One City Mall is well lit by natural daylight.

Figure 4.5 The atrium is well shaded by the two tall blocks at north and south as shown. The average annual natural daylight received at the atrium’s ground floor is about 50% of the daylight outside of building even

without taking into consideration of skylight.

The atrium is naturally lit with sufficient natural daylight in afternoon and may need some artificial lighting in overcast day or as the sun goes down.

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Figure 4.6 Shadow range study

As One City Mall is the tallest building in the area surrounded by highways in all directions, there are no other buildings obstructing or casting a shadow on the mall thus it gets maximum exposure of sunlight all year round. The shop lots at the south of One City Mall are much shorter and do not cast shadow on One City Mall.It has no right to light issue at all.

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5.0 PASSIVE DESIGN FEATURES

Green walls

One of the ascendant designs of One City Skypark is the presence of green walls. A green wall is a wall partially or completely covered with vegetation that includes a growing medium, such as soil or in One City Skypark case, vines that creep one wires stretched vertically against the walls. However, One City Skypark building does not only benefit on the greenery of the green walls but also allows the building to have wide openings that are partially covered with vines which not only give a more ventilated and cooling interior but also a more desirable interior and exterior design as shown in Figure 5.0.

Figure 5.0

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There are mainly 2 types of green walls, and in this case, the One City Skypark uses a Semi-intensive green wall that requires a support mechanism for climbing plants such as vines. These support mechanism are cables or a wire mesh that enable vines to wrap itself around forming a dense green wall as shown in Figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1

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Benefits

The benefits of green walls are that these too can be used to create a cool shady environment due to the greenery absorbing sunlight and maintaining the quality of air instead of allowing it to penetrate through the walls of the building and allowing heat to permeate into the opening of the building hence reducing the total amount of heat gain into the building.

Figure 5.2

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Besides that, the green walls protect the façade of the building by reducing the potential rainwater damage upon the wall, hence minimizing the maintenance required.Furthermore, green walls can substantially aid inreducing the loss of biodiversity due to urbanization. Such that green walls consist of a variation of plants, invertebrates, and pollinators which not only replace the existing biodiversity but also serve as nesting spots and habitat for many species. Local plants species are generally used for the green walls to ensure maximum benefits and often vary based on the original environment.

Figure 5.3

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Technology of Green Walls

The major category of green walls is green façade and living walls. Green facades allows cascading groundcovers or climbing plants to engulf and act as a coating towards bare supporting structures which help to reduces the need for finishing. Plants are usually rooted at the base of the structures or on planters. Moving on, Living walls are mainly comprised of panels that are vegetated or cohesive fabric system that are attached to a structure or wall. Segmental panels can be made out of either plastic containers, geo textiles, irrigation, growing medium and vegetation( Sharp, 2010).

Figure 5.4

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5.0 Passive Design

Water Feature

Water feature can be varied from ponds, lakes, fountains and pools. Water feature could be in both indoors and outdoors. As for One City Mall, it has a skylight which allows sunlight to penetrate through the building, making the building heat conserving. Hence, this is where the water feature plays a big role. During the day, if excessive sunlight penetrates through the skylight, making the interior heat conserving, the pond in the interior of the building absorbs the heat, making the building more ventilated.

Figure 5.5

Running water attracts negative ions, which themselves attract dirt particles in the air. The combination pulls dirt out of the air and into the fountain where it can be purified. Having a wall fountain will snag dirt right out of the air that would have otherwise worked its way into your lungs.

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Technology of Water Feature

Figure 5.6

To begin with, man-made urban ponds is defined as bodies of water that are formed and upheld by humans instead of mother nature, within this wide ranging categories are a number of sub categories for example water gardens where the key function is aesthetic displays, fish ponds where the main purpose is building and housing an ecosystem that breeds fish, backyard ponds and garden ponds where the pond is applied more as a landscaping structures, or industrial ponds where the purpose is to stone water as part of some industrial process

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Figure 5.7

There are many categories of filtrating system such as internal filters, external filters and UV filters. Internal filters are hidden under water, internal filters are ideal for smaller ponds. They are generally less expensive than other types of filters, but the must be removed from the water in order to be maintained. Usually water goes into the filter and then into the pump.

Figure 5.8

The Main reason external filters are widely used is due to the Easy access that makes anideal maintenance process. External filters are commonlyuse formaintaining larger bodies of water. Water is pumped from the pump to the filter and recirculates externally allow the user to change and maintain the filter regularly.

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Figure 5.9

UV Sterilizers must be used in conjunction with any properly sized filter. The Pond water passesinto a beam of Ultraviolet Light (UV) created the device. The UV light kills unwanted biological organisms which are then removed from the water by the UV filter. Like filters, UV sterilizers must be sized according to the volume of water in the pond. The plus side of using this method is that the filter does not need to be maintained as regularly as the internal and external filters.

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Benefits

Figure 5.10

The sound and appearance of running water can relax your mind, even lowering tension in your joints and muscles. For example, indoor fountains, like a wall fountain, table-top fountain or other type of water fountain, can help you become more relaxed. An indoor fountain is just one component of a healthy and relaxed lifestyle, but it's totally worth it. You'll love the way it looks and the way it makes you feel. The designer of One City Mall really pull it off on considering the comfort of the clients.

Whether you are worrying over a loved one, a difficult work or school assignment or anything else, indoor fountains might be able to provide the jolt of relaxation you need. When you are feeling the mental pressure of stress, there is no better place to let off steam than by your indoor fountain. Reason being why there are couches situated near the flowing water in the mall. Lying on the couch and closing your eyes as you listen to the water rush down the wall is the perfect medicine for your troubles. As your mind relaxes, your body will loosen as well.

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Other Benefits

The result has been a huge shift in mind-set that has seen WSUD enshrined in planning and policy responses to climate change, and an acceptance that tackling flooding and drought doesn't have to be in isolation to creating liveable cities. A water feature in the heart of a city, for example, will enhance the micro-climate and reduce heat island effect, while whole productive landscapes can be supported by waste-water recycling.

Figure 5.11

During the day, the ponds on the roof conserve the heat, making the cold breezy night less freezing. Besides that, the water feature gives a benefit of being able to plant greenery in the building, providing an ecosystem in the building. Greenery helps to soften the artificial urban landscape and provide visual relief from the concrete jungle environment for residents and office workers.

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Figure 5.12

A surface water body is effectivelyan ecological resource if that is supporting habitat for aquatic organisms or wildlife and it has become assimilated into the natural landscape as well as the local hydrogeological system. Some man-made surface water features contains ecologically valuable habitat that helps . This habitat may be an intentionally designed into some man-made surface water bodies, or may develop unintentionally through colonization by native flora and fauna. Certain man-made water bodies may be specifically designed to preclude aquatic or wildlife habitat and are unlikely to contain ecologically valuable resources. Man-made dry detention basins and dry swales created for purposes of stormwater management are examples of water features that often fall into this category. Evaluations to determine whether a man-made surface water feature contains ecologically valuable habitat should be conducted by an ecologist or ecological risk assessor.

6.0 Conclusion

One City Mall Puchong

One City Mall, one of the first green “malls” built in Selangor which incorporates a passive design to reduce carbon emissions as well as cuts down the island effect of suburban areas. A complete site visit revealed that there were various flaws in the building design but, they can be improved to further enhance the efficiency and the comfort level of the mall. Despite the use of natural ventilation to aerate the compound, a rather stuffy and humid air was felt mainly due to the effects of the skylight. The skylight is able to refract massive amount of natural sunlight but, manages to trap a substantial amount of heat into the open space of the mall. The excessive heat through the skylight heats up the space too much and forces

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extra use of synthetic air-conditioning. This could be seen at most of the shops settled around the open space of the building as, the shop keepers tend to use either a portable fan or an air conditioner to ventilate their stalls. The one city design has two entrances which also act as air vents on two sides of the mall. The air flow provided by these entrances counteracts with the skylight’s abilities to gain heat. However, the design, as we analyzed during the site proved to be ineffective because of a very humid environment at the mall. Moving on, the skylight design is effective in terms of bringing in natural light during the day. Both the openings on either side play a major role in providing natural light and ventilation as well. The entrances don't provide enough cold ventilation to counter the excessive heat gain through skylight. Keeping this in mind and a detailed study of the building reveals that the skylight should be tinted with smart glass tint instead of conventional tempered glass so that the amount of heat permeated into the mall can be reduced. A smart glass tint will remove the excessive gain of heat through the skylight and will add up to maintaining a more comfortable environment within the mall. The natural lighting lost by the tinted skylight can be replaced by by entrances. In addition, more air vents should be incorporated in the building so that a more steady air flow is available. The overall view of the design strikes as a very green design but a thorough analysis shows some innate flows which come through a green approach. These factors can be controlled through minor changes in the structure layout of the building but, keeping convenience and practicality in mind, improvement of things is always better than starting from scratch.

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One city

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