Project White Knight

Client - R W Gregory LLP

The facade of this new building in the centre of Manchester is to be constructed with a high proportion of glazing. Consequently, possible high solar gains are of concern with regard to the cooling loads required to maintain comfortable conditions.

The first stage completed by Flow Analysis was to set up a model to quantify the amount of shading from the surrounding buildings. This shading has been simulated for a number of days of the year (the equinox results are shown to the left).

Secondly, the properties of the proposed glazing were input into the thermal model to determine the solar gains. Several types of glazing were tested and the conclusions were that high performance glazing should be used to limit the solar gains to acceptable levels.

The downside of using glazing with reduced solar transmittance is that the light transmittance is also reduced. Consequently, there was a requirement to investigate the levels of daylighting within the building, which Flow Analysis had the expertise to carry out.

A daylight analysis model was built in specialist software, which revealed that, at lower level, some severe overshadowing and consequent reduced daylighting levels were apparent.

At higher level, the effects of the higher performance glazing was found to have less severe consequences on the predicted levels of daylight. The figure to the right shows the lux levels which are expected to be exceeded for 80% of the time on the 5th floor. This represents an acceptable standard for an office environment.

Having access to this information was clearly important to the client in making decisions about the final requirements of the design.

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