NTHU Green Energy Building

BACK

YEAR

2011 - 2015

LOCATION

Hsinchu

CLIENT

Dr. Weide Lee

SITE AREA

859,221 ㎡

BUILDING AREA

6,435 ㎡

STATUS

Completed

TYPOLOGY

Education

CERTIFICATION

EEWH Gold Certification

The building provides a borderless and open space that serves as a creative, nourishing, and diversified platform for everyone on campus. The architectural design of the building is integrated fully with the school’s goal of low carbon energy research and development by using green building technologies and sustainable ideologies.

Energy-saving Outer Shell

In order to adapt to the local climate, a passive approach is adopted for the design of the building envelope. White expanded metal lath panel is chosen as the main exterior envelope of the building for its qualities of weight reduction, shading, and ventilation. The metal lath can effectively reduce heat radiation without any negative impact on interior illumination, and its energy efficiency can achieve as high as 70%. Taken into consideration of the building and its relation with Earth’s rotation and sun orientation, the expanded metal lath panel is designed with various opening density to further improve its energy saving efficiency. The maintenance walkway that is formed by outer shell of the building also provides an open visual connection with the campus landscape while at the same time offers the laboratories a more flexible usage space.

Using Air and Light to Interconnect Inner / Outer Public Spaces

In order to provide sufficient natural lighting to the public areas, the idea of using energy flow as a concept has emerged during the schematic design phase. Public spaces such as the foyer, reception hall, and the exhibition hall are all interconnected with various bright colors, and they have all converged at the central courtyard atrium, which also effectively guide the internal natural ventilation. The orange-colored public spaces have merged all the movements from the North-South direction of the campus and utilized the natural lighting of the atrium to symbolize the convergence as a dialogue between light and energy. As a representative color of resistance in electrical current, the color orange also serves as a symbolic agent for stimulating curiosity and desire for learning.

A dialogue between an open-green building and the campus

The architecture has presented an open and sustainable approach to design its public spaces when energy efficiency and comfort level is taken into consideration. The mass of the building is already sufficient enough to withstand and North-East seasonal wind, creating a comfortable micro-climate zone within the west-side lawn. The Science Exhibition Cabinet on the 1st floor passageway is used to present R&D results and progress for both students and faculties. The 2nd floor auditorium is open for school usage and features an ecological pool on its roof as a mean to insulate heat and reduce the energy load for air conditioning. The Evergreen Auditorium on the east side of the 3rd floor provides an opportunity to interact with nature, while the west side extends the interior’s field of vision by opening up to the campus. Rain water storage tank located inside the raft foundation is used to collect rain water from the roof and the patio for the purpose of landscape irrigation.