No Comments »

Architecture That Mimics Nature to Create a Breezy Micro-Climate

• Tweet

• Tweet

Privacy, yet with a feeling of open space is at a premium in our dense urban environments.  Wallflower Architecture has created a very private space in an urban milieu for a Singapore client by the extensive use of screens that hide in plain sight throughout this design. But that is not the most significant aspect of this design.

A very nature-based use of passive cooling is achieved by breezes driven across different surfaces that naturally create different temperatures in the same way that nature does…

…just like the way that land and sea breezes are generated by different temperatures over cool water and then moving over air heated by the warmth given off by rocks and land, or in this case, by concrete and then wood. Because of their different latent heat retention, all these materials have heat gain or loss, making the air temperature different above them.

In nature, that’s what creates windy areas. The many courtyards also help generate breezes the way that nature does.

Throughout – all of the hardwood louvers  can be adjusted by hand to decrease or increase the breezes and sunlight being filtered through.

To create the maximum of privacy and spaciousness, the architect used the traditional courtyard approach. The house itself skirts the perimeter of the property, with a central wing skirted by a strip of lawn on one side, and a strip of water on the other.

It seems larger than it is because the space in the central wing is see-through, with an uninterrupted 120 foot view across the entire compound.

Images: Wallflower Architecture
Via Cubeme