BALANCING BUILT ENVIRONMENT: A HYBRID DESIGN APPROACH

Spatial efficiency has been improved by incorporating the air supply and extract, heating and
cooling source into the façade. This has also improved the prefabrication level by requiring
only three components to be installed on-site. Due to prefabrication, it has become spatial
efficient. As every unit was qualitatively assessed by user, designer and maintenance
technician, it has been developed to operate in easy manner.

2.4.1. Active Beams

Active beam concern about function, aesthetic and cost effective.To overcome the humidity
control issue,an additional component, a trench. Cooler located adjacent to the window, was
added to the passive system (A. Kilaire, 2017). The double skin design is an innovative solution
for both retrofitting and new construction. This double layer came to be highly acoustic layer
along with its thermal properties.

Figure 2-24 Operation and design of Active beams Figure 2-25 Active environment system concept
Source: (A. Kilaire, 2017) Source: (A. Kilaire, 2017)

Active beam system is based on reversible heat pump to cater both summer and winter
weather and maintain comfortable indoor environment regardless of external weather
condition. It is designed with controlled intelligent algorithm to best suit the occupants and their
preferable thermal comfort. This improves humidity level during winter and increase the
performance of the system at summer restricting condensation to form inside the cavity of
double skin elevation. About 62% of annual cooling load was recorded to be reduced in an
office building of UK using Double Skin Façade, compared to a fully air conditioned building.

Active beams were chosen as they can achieve good comfort levels, provide sufficient cooling
and heating and are energy efficient. Another advantage of active beams is the ability to have
them custom designed to a particular shape and integrate additional services such as artificial
lighting, fire detection and audio. Active beams come in various forms and used and controlled
as per requirement.

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