At this week’s lunch-time seminar, Chen Kian Wee and Marcel Bruelisauer presented some insights into their research as part of the Low Exergy Module at the Future Cities Laboratory. Their presentation was titled ‘Expanding Bubble’.

Abstract

The building sector places one of the heaviest burdens on the world’s energy resources and natural environment. The problems of climate change and finite stocks of fossil fuels will cause severe conflicts in the coming decades if there is no change in the technologies used to construct and run buildings.

Chen Kian Wee will present his in progress work on the integration of low exergy approach into the architecture design process. He looks at how implementing low exergy systems will have spatial, programmatic and facade
implications to a design project. A design framework is proposed to aid architects in the exploration and an example will be presentated to demonstrate the framework.

Marcel Bruelisauer will present his work on heat rejection systems for climate control in the tropics and their influence on performance and design. He will show recent measurement results of air-conditioning units and propose a novel heat bus system in which building users share centralised infrastructures to better reject heat into the environment.