Comments on: GLOBAL ECOLOGY RESEARCH BUILDING at Stanford

By: JHW

JHW — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 22:43:38 +0000

royalestel: The roof cooling system is just what you see, a bunch of irrigation sprinkler heads attached to copper piping. The tricky bits of design on this job never come out in the articles. For example, the nightsky tubing is copper. The roofing is steel. Anyone see the problem here? Galvanic corrosion was a major concern, addressed through isolating the copper from the roof at every clamp.

Another non-sexy but major design feature: The building is designed to cool using water at 60F rather than the traditional 44F. This is much easier to generate. Those bare flyash floors? They have tubing embedded in them and are cooled during the summer to around 65F-70F. Easy to do with 60F water and about as cool as you want to go due to the cold feet issue.

All water from the roof is collected by the downspouts into the tank. The tank has an overflow, since all rain is also collected into the tank. This is a feature, not a bug – the annual washout of the tank serves as blowdown to prevent buildup of minerals from the evaporation.

The amount of water that evaporates is less than in a traditional chiller since there is no blowdown for hardness control required (a reduction of about 20% right there), there is no chiller waste heat added to the evap load, and a significant portion of the heat is rejected radiatively rather than evaporatively. Overall, the estimate is 50% potable water savings.

By: Nick Simpson

Nick Simpson — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 10:26:34 +0000

Great cooling system… A beautiful use of timber too, just proves that sustainability can work with attractive design.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 21:06:58 +0000

They have a good explanation via a .pdf file at http://www.ehdd.com Click on Global Ecology Research Center Case Study.

By: royalestel

royalestel — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 19:12:10 +0000

That’s a neat roof cooling system. I’ll have to do more research on the systems this building uses, but I wouldn’t mind more information posted here!

By: Vinod Bhatia

Vinod Bhatia — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:17:07 +0000

Fantastic…..

By: Evan

Evan — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 15:00:59 +0000

Lovely, but what is the missing word in this sentence?

The water, thanks to the ______________ is cooled down as it runs down the roof loosing heat to the night sky.

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:23:16 +0000

I’m most curious about the roof-based water cooling system: how much water evaporates? is grey water used in the process? is rain water used to replenish the system? how is the cooled water used to cool the building; radiantly or by chilling forced air?

By: JS

JS — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:41:27 +0000

awesome. thanks!

By: Eliena Andrews

Eliena Andrews — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 09:52:07 +0000

Hii,
really amazing picx, thanks for sharing coool pictures. I wish i had also same apartment …