Project 3:
Project Name: The Gridshell Building; Weald and Downland Museum
Architect: Edward Cullinan Architects
Engineer: Buro Happold
Client Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, Singleton
Sponsors: Heritage Lottery Fund, Jerwood Foundation
Location: West Sussex, England
Opened: 2002
The Gridshell is a solution to that does not need to flaunt and is not embellished with unnecessary features, it is A wide open area of high height where the timbers and frames of historic structures, before being erected on the museum grounds, should be planned for conservation and repair. It is further used for conservation training programs. Essentially, it is intended to function as an industrial building with a focus on sustainable composition and energy efficiency, with natural light being a primary focus on this project, it is the main source of illumination for the building, and treating any kind of artificial light source as something to completely avoid unless absolutely necessary, as the building does not use any artificial light during daylight hours whatsoever. Of course, the exceptions are when the building is occupied for an extended period of time, or for intense winter environments.
The Gridshell is fundamentally designed to be able to operate with the smallest amount of energy possible and will only be supplying energy to spaces where it is deemed as a necessity. For example, in spaces that are able to produce their own heat due to the function or activities taking place in that active space, such as in instances where people are exerting themselves with a physical activity, whatever it may be. The daylighting design implemented in this building can be managed in such a way that the use of artificial lighting is rendered pointless and unnecessary during day light hours. Solar power is utilised effectively such that solar energy is used to heat up the water supply which is then transferred throughout the site by an underground heating system in the lower floors. Using this strategy, the ground will serve as a heat sink, which will allow the underground archival rooms to achieve thermal stability. Which is made possible by design when enabling a direct thermal link between the floor slab and ground. The only acting insulating layers used in the building are the outermost walls and the coating soil (7). The essential use for the structure required a large, tall, open space liberated from obstacle for the preservation work, with a more modest zone for use as a historical center and putting away of the gallery's relics. However, in the circumstance the artefacts store would have irregular use and may therefore be met by artificial light regularly, unlike the previously mentioned spaces which was met by daylighting during the day.
In order to analyze the purpose and property of the daylighting design, it must also consider the implications made on the architect’s end that this is a green building which adopt the terms of sustainability and energy efficiency as its thesis and are tied into its very identity. The architects put much of their attention into the skylight, which should be transparent and untampered, since as much sunlight as possible is required in the museum’s lighting design. With a high degree of transparency comes a high concentration of sunlight, which the architects manage to complement with low contrast materials and finishes so that physical colour rendering is easier for the observer, allowing better perception in the building no matter the lighting conditions and how they are affected by weather conditions. To compensate for the inherent side effects of such intense solar gains, the design does not neglect the possibility of regulating this solar gain such that the high day light levels do not cause discomfort, thus a middle ground must be found.
The architects made the decision to alternate the skylight materiality and texture in order to come up with a simplistic solution to the issue of regulating solar glare while also providing the maximum amount of illumination into the building. First, in order to not only take advantage of a cheaper alternative, polycarbonate panels are observably lighter than glass, which did not submit as hard a load on the timber structure. Second, the architects went through installing different materials of the window on the north and south facing skylights. Although both sides are made up of the same polycarbonate paneling at a high elevation, there are different textures or filters applied to each one. The north side of the panels are clear, which does not hinder from illuminating the building by any means, on the other hand, the south side of the paneling has a bronze tint which inhibits solar glare. While on paper this suggest that this would result in uneven and inconsistent lighting quality, however in practice this resulted in a balanced quality of lighting adequate for all year-round conditions, since the northern skylight provided more or less consistent illumination throughout, paired with the inconsistency of the bronze skylight, provided this result (7).
(7)
Consequently, the building has not yet needed any artificial light in the upper exhibition room, during the day, proving the goals that the architects aimed to achieve were met, seeing as the building has not used electricity during all the work and activities that this space was intended for, from conservation of architects to educational programs and courses, satisfying the purpose of making the building sustainable and energy efficient. It won an RIBA award for architecture and was also shortlisted for the Stirling prize.
3. Satellite.pro. Satellite. [Online] https://satellites.pro/Germany_map#52.519804,13.372722,16.
7. Philips, Derek. Daylighting: Natural Light in Architecture. Oxford : Architectural Press, 2004.
12. Design and Construction of Downland Gridshell. Harris, Richard, et al. 6, London : Spoon Press : Taylor and Francis Group , November - December 2003, Building and Research Information, Vol. 31, pp. 427 - 454.
