Night flushing
ESD design guide - Video and transcript
Mick Pearce, Design Manager, City of Melbourne
Australian Government Department of the Environment and Heritage, June 2005
AVI video file
About the video file
This video should be viewed in the context of the ESD design guide for Australian Government buildings.
The ESD design guide gives a basic introduction to ecological sustainability issues and specifically how the built environment affects them. It begins by outlining the Australian position on Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) and some key policies relevant to buildings and ESD.
See also: more ESD design guide videos
Transcript
We were disadvantaged by deep space.
It meant that energy saving couldn't be done in a simple way.
Natural ventilation was out.
You work it out that people in the middle are fine, but for the people on the edges, it doesn't work.
21 metres is our depth.
We use natural ventilation for night flushing.
That cools the concrete ceiling down, and we expose as much thermal mass to the space, which works on the principle that we feel more radiant cooling than ducted or convected air.
We cool by water, so the air is delivered at room temperature or comfort level, so we're not putting a big budget on the cost of cooling like that.
We're cooling by water moving through ceiling panels, which we also use for acoustic treatment.
The night flushing is very important, using the day/night shift.
We also use the Melbourne climate, which is a 3-4 day shift between very hot and cold.
The trick is to store that energy.
We ended up with Phase Change Materials.
If this works, it should be a very interesting way of doing it.
[end transcript]
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