Suvarnabhumi International Airport Bangkok Innovative Climate Control System

Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok has come up with great architectural solutions to the problem of climate control. The challenge was a tough one for architects and engineers because Bangkok has an average temperature of 25 to 30 degrees Celsius and a relative humidity between 50% and 60%. In short, Bangkok is always hot and sweaty and the challenge was to design an airport with a cooling system that was both economical and energy efficient.

The first thing the architects did was to minimize the effects of solar loads. The terminal sheds on the north side are fitted with fritted glass with a 95% opacity specification that allow diffused light but minimize solar gain. On the hotter south side terminal sheds solid panels were placed on the roof to reduce solar gain to just 1%.

For the main spaces of the airport architects cleverly designed a zoned building. Thus there are no massive open spaces to cool. Instead cooling systems are directed at essential zones of the building. This prevents a lot of waste.

Two types of cooling system are deployed in Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok. They are radiant floor cooling which removes radiation striking the floor of the building; and secondly, an air displacement system with a controllable airstream supplying cool air to space at floor level and at low velocity. This is the genius part of the cooling system at the airport. It works on the principal of thermal air stratification. Namely, that cool air is heavier than warm air. So as long as you can prevent the floor heating up then much of the cool air that you pump into the building at ground level will remain cool. It is not necessary to keep the higher reaches of the airport building cool because nobody is at that level. The air heat is stratified so the air is kept at 24 degrees Celsius up to 2.5 meters above ground level and gradually gets warmer the higher up you go, until at roof level the air temperature is basically near ambient temperature.

Finally, the airport building uses an innovative three-ply membrane roof to allow in 1% to 2% diffused sunlight but prevent solar radiation. These membranes consist of Teflon-coated glass fiber, a coated inner membrane and transparent PC sheets on a steel cable and mesh structure. The inward facing side of the inner membrane also has low-e coatings to block solar radiation heat.

All in all, the architects and engineers at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok have done a great job at energy efficiency for a very large and potentially difficult building to keep cool.

Pixel Art

This is a good example of how a problem can be viewed as an opportunity for creativity. The Bangkok Transit System 'Sky Trains' have changed people's perceptions of the city. Before nobody paid much attention to the fronts of apartment blocks, but now they've become exposed to commuters on the trains. Eye-level has been raised. The result is that tenants have lost their privacy and Bangkok 'looks' uglier.

Studio ELEVATION and Overdose have come up with a clever solution to the problem - pixel art. The idea is to add a light weight structure to the facade of a row of apartment blocks. The structure is a lattice which contains many small boxes like pixels. The pixels are designed to combine to create patterns. The tenants thus regain their privacy and train users have something interesting to look at. The design also brings together the community because the design of the pixel art only works through co-operation.

The facade 'pixels' are made from wooden crates sourced at the Port of Bangkok. The wood is treated to weather proof it. This is a good example of Green Architecture because it is using low-cost recycled materials.

The project also has an 'organic' and 'democratic' aspect to it because as tenants replace their individual pixels the pattern changes and develops. There is no top-down authority. Every 'pixel' is of equal value.

Thai Vernacular Architecture

Vernacular architecture refers to a way of building which uses local materials and addresses local needs. Vernacular architecture is often 'organic' in the sense that a building is not planned beforehand but rather develops as a result of the availability of certain materials and as a response to changing cultural and environmental factors.

The most obvious example of vernacular architecture is the Innuit eskimo. In Thailand fisherman's houses and basic bungalows in the jungle and on the beach owe alot to vernacular architecture.

I recently stumbled across an unusual example of Thai vernacular architecture on the Phi Phi Design workshop site written by the Thai architect Rachaporn Choochuey. The house is made nearly entirely from materials found at the nearby garbage dump. The builder has carefully selected the materials. The roof is made from bits of metal cut to the right size. The columns are reinforced concrete molded by metal bins with the molds being kept after the concrete has dried.