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BUILDING SCIENCE 1 (BLD60803)

PROJECT 1 :

Case Study: Identifying Innovative Passive Design Strategies

LIM FOU SING 0314997

TAN KWOK SEONG 0314700

LEE RUN SEN 0308226

CHENG CHEN LIANG 0310043

TSAI WAN CHING 0315185

LIM SHU YIN 0307795

Platinum Sentral, Kuala Lumpur

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CONTENT PAGE 1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Brief Introduction 1.2 Purpose of Study 1.3 Location of Site 1.4 Awards & Accolades 1.5 Purpose of Singapore’s National Library 1.6 Directory

2.0 CLIMATE DATA

3.0 THERMAL ANALYSIS 3.1 Thermal Data 3.2 Relationship Between Temperature & Humidity 3.3 Comfort Zone

4.0 WIND ANALYSIS

4.1 Wind Data 4.2 Wind Studies 4.3 Rose Diagrams 4.4 Air Circulation 4.5 Natural Ventilation

5.0 SUN ANALYSIS 5.1 Solar Data 5.2 Natural Lighting against Sun Path 5.3 Building Configuration against Sun Path

6.0 DESIGN CONCEPT & PASSIVE DESIGN STRATEGIES

6.1 Psychrometric Data 6.2 Building Envelope 6.3 Passive Design Strategies 6.4 Identification & Analysis of 2 Passive Design Features

6.4.1 Skylight / Sun Roof 6.4.2 Inclined Green Wall System

7.0 Active Design Strategies 8.0 Conclusion 9.0 References

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1.0 Introduction

1.1 Brief Introduction

Platinum Sentral is a state-of-the-art campus-style office, offering seamless connectivity, a creative working environment and contemporary business lifestyle. Platinum Sentral is Kuala Lumpur Sentral CBD’s first Green Office Campus. It comprises of 5 blocks of low-rise campus style offices with high-end retail shops, hospitality zone & green space with a GFA of approximately 980,000 square feet. With its estimated GDV of over RM700 million, this premise has provided ample car parks equipped with digital guidance system. The retail space planned across 86,251 square feet. caters to the needs of the working population in Platinum Sentral as well as the surrounding office areas. The dynamic, state-of-the-art architecture planned across 380,835 square feet, complements the contemporary business lifestyles.

1.2 Purpose of Study

Platinum Sentral is the first development in Malaysia to fulfill the criteria set-out by the BCA Green Mark (Singapore) for the Platinum rating. To achieve this, the developer, Malaysian Resources Corporation Berhad (MRCB) ensured that the capital cost investments were lowered between 8-10% of the usual capital costs and managed to achieve 30% in operational savings. The development has a total of 2 acres of Green area. The development has also been nominated as one of the pilot projects to achieve a rating from Malaysia’s GBI in the category of Environmental Sustainable Development. Positioned as the ‘Green Lung’ of Kuala Lumpur Sentral, the development has well-layout green spaces to include green roof terraces, sky gardens, facades and inclined podium walls. Besides, the artistic use of metal, glass and environmentally friendly construction materials gives Platinum Sentral a uniquely urban yet natural finish. Potentially to house ICT-based companies, the Platinum

Sentral is unique for its unconventional green features,

which also complement the contemporary business

lifestyles and missions. The building provides an

alternative office space in a green-setting with an

outdoor environment conducive to seamless work.

Figure 1: View from west

entrance

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1.3 Location of the Site The Platinum Sentral is situated opposite the Arrival Hall of the KL Sentral Station and next to

the Le Meridien Hotel at Jalan Stesen Sentral 2 in Kuala Lumpur. Hence, it is a walking distance

to the LRT, Monorail & KTM Komuter station which brings convenience for the visitor or working

staff to back and forth from their residences. Besides, there are buses and cabs station nearby

and easily available. The car driver also can access to the building from all major highways due to

its strategic location.

Source: http://www.klcc-office.com/index.php?go=properties&id=169&location=6

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1.4 Awards & Accolades - Platinium certification from the BCA Green Mark(Singapore) and GBI from Malaysia Platinum Sentral has outstanding features for energy saving, focusing on enhancing efficiency in utilising energy, water and materials. Every feature from walls, the roof, gardens and plant life are meant to help conserve energy, in line with MRCB’s commitment towards sustainable development. Thus, the building has won several awards as a recognition of its achievements: 2002- Malaysia Property Award of Distinction FIABCI Specialised Public Sector Category ( Stesen Sentral Kuala Lumpur) 2008- Winner of FIABCI Malaysia Property Award Office Development Category (1 Sentral ) 2009- Winner of FIABCI Malaysia Property Award Purpose-built Category (Sooka Sentral ) 2009- 1st Runner Up, FIABCI Prix d’ Exellence Office Development Malaysia Category (1 Sentral) 2010- 1st Runner Up, FIABCI Prix d’ Exellence Purpose-built Category (Sooka Sentral ) 2010- Winner of FIABCI Malaysia Property Award Office Development Category (Quill 7 ) 2012- Editors Choice Property Awards Best Integrated Development (Kl Sentral CBD) 2012- Editors Choice Property Awards Best Green Initiative (Malaysia Resource Corporation Berhad) 2012- The Edge-PAM Green Excellence Awards Green Building (Platinum Sentral) 2012- Singapore’s BCA Green Mark (Platinum Rating)

1.5 Purpose of Platinium KL Sentral

Platinum Sentral is Malaysia’s first Smart + Connected Real Estate (S+CRE) with its centralised network solution for integrating energy, building, facility, security, maintenance and IT networks management. It forms the internal structure that supports the green and sustainable features and functionalities of Platinum Sentral. The unique campus-style building offers superb connectivity, a creative working environment and high standard business lifestyle for the public around KL Sentral.

Figure 2: Overview of Main Atrium

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1.6 Directory

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2.0 Climate Data

Diurnal Average Temperature

1 Jan to 31 Dec

Diurnal temperature is the

difference between the daily

maximum and minimum

temperature.

Dry Bulb Temperatures

1 Jan to 31 Dec

They Dry Bulb Temperature refers

basically to the ambient air

temperature. Its measured by a

thermometer which is not affected

by the moisture of the air.

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Wet Bulb Temperatures

1 Jan to 31 Dec

The wet bulb temperature is the

temperature indicated by a

moistened thermometer bulb

exposed to the air flow. It will

always be lower than dry bulb

temperature but will be identical

with 100% relative humidity.

Direct Radiation

1 Jan to 31 Dec

Direct radiation data is used for the

calculation of evapotranspiration,

which is a function solar energy,

wind and temperature.

Relative Humidity

1 Jan to 31 Dec

Relative humidity is the ratio of the

current absolute humidity to the

highest possible absolute humidity,

to see how much air is saturating

with water vapor, which is to check

the possibility of rain.

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3.0 Thermal Analysis

3.1 Thermal Data

External Temperature

Internal Temperature

The indoor air temperature of the building is found to be in between 22.5°C to 25.5°C, whereas the maximum macro and micro climatic difference is about 3°C. The internal temperature shows a higher result because that was the initial temperature before the plantations, the greeneries managed to decrease the temperature greatly afterwards. Although it’s only about 3°C differences, but as 50% the roof is designed to have vegetation, together with the gardens, they keeps the surrounding ambient temperature low by providing shades, ventilations and prevents heats absorption by the concrete. This local vegetation shades are successful enough to reduce the heat effectively by lowering the wall surface temperature up to 17°C.

Table 1: Monthly Diurnal Averages, M’sia

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3.2 Relationship Between Temperature & Humidity

The relative humidity typically ranges from 58% to 99% over the country of the year. 58% consider as mildly humid while 99% consider as very humid. From the graph we obtained above, it can be seen that February would be the driest month, whereas November would be the most humid month for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. But the graph above shows only the average daily high and low relative humidity (blue and brown), its more likely to be within both graph, where the percentile bands are. The diagram above shows the average thermal of the building during the day, showing the heat-ness and coolness areas. Red zones are along the building as the spaces there are warmer due to the glass facade, which maximizes light source.

Table 2: Relative Humidity

Figure 3: Temperature Zoning

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The graphs below shows the temperature and the humidity of Malaysia on the day we visited the building, 28th of April 2014.

Table 3: Temperature – 28th April 2014

Table 4: Humidity – 28th April 2014

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After gathering the data of temperature and humidity, we place them together to have a side-to-side comparison and to analyze its differences.

Through this comparison analysis, we have compiled our understanding of the relationship

between temperature and humidity. Temperature and relative humidity are interrelated. For

instance, when temperature is high, relative humidity is low. Indoor air is cooler as all of the

openings (entrance) are usually closed during the lunch hour due to less human activity. Hot air

inside will rise and escape to exterior. Low humidity level is due to the poor air ventilation

(limited fenestration). The analysis causes a change from the typical theory of relationship

between temperature and relative humidity. Therefore, occupants feel most comfortable in the

morning with lower temperature and higher relative humidity.

Table 5: Temperature against Humidity – 28th April 2014

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3.3 Comfort Zone Platinum Sentral has an indoor temperature of 22.5°Celsius to 25.5°Celsius, which meets the basis temperature for human comfort. Weather, air humidity, air pressure and number of occupants do affect the thermal factor of Platinum Sentral. Based on our own analysis, number of occupants at the hall way of this building increases during peak hour, 9am and 5pm. Between 12pm and 2pm, the number of occupants may decreased gradually as most of the office workers may choose to have their meal in the restaurants or cafe in Platinum Sentral. Therefore, the number of occupants at the hall way decreases rapidly during lunch hour but increases at restaurants and cafe. This shows that human comfort zone changes based on temperature and the number of occupants at the specific area. An increase of temperature(12pm to 2pm) and an increase of number of occupants at a specific area results in a decrease of human comfort level and vice verse. Gardens at Platinum Sentral achieve its best comfort zone early in the morning and late evening due to the low temperature and a small number of occupants. The diagrams below shows different time having different level of comfort zone.

8.00 A.M.

During this hour, the occupations in the office is

likely to be most packed compared to the other

areas. There’ll be people in the gardens and

restaurants as well, but lesser compared to kitchen.

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12.00 P.M.

During lunch hour, the occupations in office will

decrease harshly, as they are going out for lunch,

therefore, the walkway, restaurants, and gardens are

likely to increase in occupations during this hour.

5.00 P.M.

Inactive in office areas, and more people in the

restaurants areas, so does the garden. But its more

likely that restaurant will have more occupants

compare to the gardens.

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Factors affecting thermal comfort can be categorized into two main categories, which is

environmental factors and personal factors.

The above diagram shows the environmental factors, which are air temperature, radiant

temperature, air velocity and humidity. A good passive design building will take it considerations

of all which is the reason why it’s essential to collect the data during design stage. Specifications

of design strategies of the building we study have been written at next chapter.

The another category is personal factors (human factors), which are clothing insulation and

metabolic heat. These variables are dependent on the users, which cannot control by the

building. For example, some clothes are thicker which have more insulation, or, some users ran

across the street under the hot sun and sweat. The clothing insulation can still be control if the

building specifics users to wear proper clothing (e.g. Long pants) , but the building we are

studying is not required to.

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4.0 Wind Analysis

4.1 Wind Data

Wind Directions Over The Entire Year

The chart above shows the wind directions over the entire year. From the chart, we can see that the wind is most often out of the north, followed by north-east. The wind is least often out of the south-east.

The typical wind speeds in tropical climate varies from 0mph to 10mph. The green graph represents average daily maximum wind speed, red represents average daily minimum wind speed, and the black represents the average wind speed.

Table 6: Wind Intensity – Bar Chart

Table 7: Wind Speed

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4.2 Wind Studies

January April

August December

Approximately 75% of the wind comes from South-East, which as 25% comes from North-West.

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4.3 Rose Diagrams

The wind rose-diagram place on top of the site plan. The locations of core and spatial

organization of this building was planned/designed by considering the prevailing winds, for

example, the entrances are facing north-east to allow the strongest wind to enter to the

intersection of the walkways from different entrances, as well as the wind from the garden area

as well.

Figure 4: Rose Diagram + Site Context

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The rose diagram above shows the data of prevailing wind throughout the entire year in Kuala

Lumpur, Malaysia. We obtain much details as we further research specifically on our sites.

Figure 5: Annual Rose Diagram

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4.4 Air Circulation

The diagram above shows air circulation from the strongest area, South direction towards the interior of Platinum Sentral and the air leaves from interior to North-East of the building. Vertical air circulation occurs in the atrium as well as the atrium has openings for warm air to escape and cool air to descend to the hall way.

Figure 6: Air Circulation (Top View)

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4.5 Natural Ventilation

The building uses stack ventilation.

Stack ventilation: This ventilation mostly occurs in large tall spaces, it functions well to extract

warm air from a space and replacing it with cool air.

Air circulation in the atrium assist interior air ventilation and minimizes the use of active

strategies and energy consumption. Openings are usually opened for smooth air flow from

exterior to interior which replaces warm air to cool air in the space. Natural ventilation is

applied mainly in the hall way and the gardens. One of the gardens is placed towards the

strongest wind direction where wind speed can be slowed down before the wind enters the

building.

Figure 7: Natural Ventilation (Section View)

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5.0 Sun Analysis

5.1 Solar Data

28th April 2014 8.00 A.M. From the diagram, it has shown that the shades are long which means the facade of the building actually blocks the the open roof gardens and interior space away from the direct sunlight.

28th April 2014 10.00 A.M. As the sun rises higher, the direct sunlight penetrates towards partial of the roof open gardens and the interior walkway where where shaded at 8.00 A.M. This is when the spaces are starting to get slightly warmer from the early cool air over the night.

28th April 2014 12.00 P.M. During this hour, the solar rays are likely to shoot at the whole building, most likely to be the hottest duration for the building. This warms up the building yet the temperature has been decreased by the vegetation and the design features due to the ventilation and insulation of materials.

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28th April 2014 2.00 P.M. The solar rays are similar to 12.00 P.M

as well during this hour. But the shades

at the gardens seem to be lesser

compare to 12.00 P.M, the overall

building is expected to be brighter and

higher in temperature.

28th April 2014 2.00 P.M. The temperature is expected to start

cooling down as the facade of building is

starting to provide shades, so does the

gardens, which means the open air

gardens are likely to be cooler as well.

The building’s temperature is also

expected to be decreasing until a certain

degree as the sun is setting, which

means lesser direct sunlight are

shooting towards the building. But the

materials of building will start to release

the heat which absorbed previously

during the day.

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5.2 Natural Lighting against Sun Path Lighting always plays an important role for the Architects. There’re two types of lightings, which is natural lighting and artificial lighting. Natural lighting is a necessity for well being, study has been made and the results shows that humans work and live better under natural lighting conditions, and so performs better in working quality. Meanwhile, more natural lighting means less artificial lighting, which actually saves up energy. For the Platinium Park, the interior of building uses extremely less artificial lightings as the design has skylight. Skylight is a very useful daylighting roof aperture which brings in the natural lighting while reflecting the sun heat. It’s built to be small in proportion to the surface area of building, due to the consideration of the heat content of direct sunlight. Some sunlight can actually shoots into the carpark lots which is one level below the walkway through another smaller skylight design. The partial of the building facade is built up with glazed glasses, which reflected the direct heat but allowing the sunlight to penetrate into the building. As there are publics areas and privates areas, differentiated by the public walkway and the private sectors which are offices, the office workers can actually sit beside the window, enjoying the sunlight while working, if the sunlight is too strong or too hot, they have option of working deeper in the office where are shaded.

Figure 8: Skylight at the Atrium

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5.3 Building Configuration against Sun Path The Platinum Sentral features an unique and modern designated geometry that outstands as a green building. It is the first commercial building that has campus-style design which offers seamless connectivity to the public. Featured throughout the development in KL Sentral development, trees planting is carried out for the purpose of providing shade, which reduces cooling costs. Roof and terrace gardens is planted as its surrounding landscape which enhance the thermal comfort and provide alternative work spaces for informal meetings and leisure activities. The main public walkway also located between two buildings to prevent direct sunlight from the north-south direction, without sacrifice the penetration of natural daylight through the glass atrium. As sunlight is found to be an important element for living/working comfortably, and also to increase the energy efficiency, various configurations are planned. - Walkway The path is usually shot by direct solar rays through the skylights. Skylights help balance the light in the building, reduce glare and transform the public areas into more open, living, safer spaces. By allowing the natural lighting penetrating into the building, the sunlight actually leads the users the path, directing them to differentiate between the public and private areas. - Roof Garden The open air garden provide sense of comfort and harmony, and cooling the building from outside in at the mean time, as the greeneries are acting as natural air-shields to protect the users from the solar heat and shades some areas.

Figure 9: Roof Garden

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- Building Facade The building facade is built up mostly by using concrete and glazed glasses, The wall surface has the function of preventing direct sunlight, and also absorbing some thermal heat. As for the glazed glasses built up facade, they allow the daylighting to penetrate but reflected most of the heat energy which comes together with the sunlight. - Core orientation The positioning of the building’s service core and lift cores serve to block direct radiation and conduction of heat into the main building. The offices are placed at the levels above ground level, some parts of the offices are designed as boxes, therefore the ceilings and the boxes design have the function of of providing shades to the internal parts, but the workers can work beside the windows to enjoy daylighting as they wish.

Figure 10: Buidling Facade, view from roof garden

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6.0 Design Concept & Passive Design Strategies

6.1 Psychrometric Data

Psychrometric charts are graphic representations of the psychrometric properties of air. Its very helpful in troubleshooting greenhouse buildings’ environmental problems, and simply enough to determine simple solutions. Understanding the psychrometric charts helps on visualizing the characteristics of moist air, which is helpful in passive designing.

The psychrometric chart is an important information for passive design strategy. There’re 6 main strategy modes for passive design techniques, which are: - Passive Solar Heating - Natural Ventilation - Thermal Mass Effect - Direct Evaporative Cooling - Exposed Mass + Night-Purge Ventilation - Indirect Evaporative Cooling The chart also shows the comfort zone (Yellow), whereas the whole blue painted area represent the natural condition already , therefore, other than passive design strategies, active design strategies are used to make the users of the building to be able to stay in the comfort zone at all times. As you can see, there’re actually 6 main passive design strategies.

Table 8: Psychrometric Data

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6.2 Building Envelope

The Platinum Sentral is one of Kuala Lumpur’s, or rather Malaysia’s greenest buildings and it did not earn its name by chance. The design team from Platinum Sentral designed the building with one main goal in mind, which is to build a building that has a relatively high energy efficiency and meeting all the high standards of ETTV. To do so, many engrossing material selections were used and groundbreaking ideas were developed.

Platinum Sentral is mainly built up of steels and high performance Insulating Glass Unit (IGU) and Single Glass Unit (SGU) glazing as the facade of the building. As for the roof, the building’s roof is specially formulated with PVDF thermal-control coating system which is considered a fairly innovative engineering feat.

The air space between between the two lites of glass contains Argon gas, a type of colorless gas which is denser than air. It increases the insulating value of the glass unit as well as providing insulation from outside noise.

Figure 11: Breakdown of Window Contruction

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6.3 Passive Design Strategies Passive design strategies are the strategies while designing a building, which results on a building that simply works on its own. The plan, section, selection of materials and siting create a positive energy flow through the building and save energy.

We referred to MS1525 (the standard marking for Malaysia green buildings), and we found out there’re important factors which are strongly influences to the passive design buildings. The factors which were considered in the Platinum Kuala Lumpur Sentral are:

A) Building Orientation The Platinum Sentral has an orientation of its elongated surface facing towards the north-south direction while the smaller wall areas towards the east-west direction. This method reduces direct sunlight from east-west while still captures maximum sunlight all day into the building. The glass louvers with green glazing on east-west facing facades and horizontal sun shading louvers on north-south facing facades are the common shading devices used. High performance Insulating Glass Unit (DGU) and Single Glass Unit (SGU) glazing windows are installed to the building facades to minimize heat and glare penetration.

Figure 12: Buidling’s main title board

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B) Building Configuration (Geometry & Layout) The Platinum Sentral features an unique and modern designated geometry that outstands as a green building. It is the first commercial building that has campus-style design which offers seamless connectivity to the public. Featured throughout the development in KL Sentral development, trees planting is carried out for the purpose of providing shade, which reduces cooling costs. Roof and terrace gardens is planted as its surrounding landscape which enhance the thermal comfort and provide alternative work spaces for informal meetings and leisure activities. The main public walkway also located between two buildings to prevent direct sunlight from the north-south direction, without sacrifice the penetration of natural daylight through the glass atrium. C) Ventilation The internal public atrium of the Platinum Sentral is entirely naturally ventilated, bringing office workers and public together with a sense of containment and discovery. The six floor high atrium with a fairly wide walkway allows a temperature gradient to develop, which then stimulates stack ventilation. As the warm air given off by the occupants, which is less dense rises in the building, the cooler air flows to the lower ground, providing the users sense of thermal comfort. With stack ventilation, the building does not rely on the wind as it will naturally occurs with relatively stable air flow supplemented by low velocity large scale fans. Besides, wall sheltering method is applied where shrubbery or vines are used to create shades and promote natural ventilation.

Figure 13: Buidling Facade, view from roof garden

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D) Floor to Ceiling Height The height of the ceilings are differ according to the spatial arrangement as it could affects the feeling of intimacy. The public space under the atrium is approximately 13.4 meter high as the users in the space are mostly strangers. The higher ceiling promotes convective air movement which creates cooler temperature at the ground level. While the office space at both side of the walkway has a relatively lower ceiling height, with only 2.7 meter in purpose to bond the users which mostly are colleague relationship. Due to the lower ceiling height, the space are mostly ventilated by mechanical ventilation devices. E) Location of Cores The location of cores in Platinum Sentral are the internal public atrium and the office spaces. The internal public atrium is 80% illuminated by natural sunlight penetrates through the glass atrium along the walkway. The offices located at both sides of the atrium also lighted up by daylight, assisted by the artificial lighting with intelligent controls to minimize the use of energy. While the core structure supporting the building are steel frames and glass curtain walls. F) Building Facade The facade of the Platinum Sentral is mostly covered by glass to maximize the penetration of sunlight into the office spaces. To avoid over-heating and harmful glare into the interior spaces, the external sun shading devices with green glazing are installed all over the facade, making the building looks almost entirely green with the terrace and roof garden as well as the green wall of the building. There are also louvers for shading optimization and custom-designed timber sun-shades which are daring showcase of the innovative use of local materials content for the building. The color contrast between windows and internal adjoining walls or ceilings also reduces the absorption and transfer of heat into the building. The significant six floor high glass atrium along the walkway also function as natural lighting device, and enhances the inner air quality with its higher floor to ceiling height feature.

Figure 14: Buidling’s light shades

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G) Internal Layout Offices and restaurants are mostly placed along the glass to minimise the use of artificial lightings in the building. This organized layout has fully utilise the light source harvested from the atrium roof and massive glass facade. H) Fenestrations The openings of Platinum Sentral can be found all around the building. But to be a little more specific, atrium operable glass louvers are placed facing North-East direction for natural ventilation. This ensures excellent air ventilation throughout the entire building as well as sufficient sunlight penetrates into the building via atrium.

Figure 15: Buidling East Facade

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I) Building Materials Platinum Sentral is mainly built up of steels and high performance Insulating Glass Unit (IGU) and Single Glass Unit (SGU) glazing as the facade of the building. IGU and SGU reflect sunlight to maintain thermal comfort in the building. There are also some specific selection of glass with consideration of U-value and application of Low E coating to enhance OTTV. The artistic use of steel, glass and environmentally friendly construction material gives Platinum Sentral an uniquely urban yet natural finish.

As for the roof, the building’s roof is specially formulated with PVDF thermal-control coating system. J) Roof Design & Color Platinum Sentral installed both flat metal roof, atrium roof and roof garden. Metal roof has coatings that prevent 75% to 80% of the sun’s energy from being absorbed into the roof, which then reduces roof surface temperature and minimize the heat gain towards the interior of the building. Roof garden provides shade and remove heat from the air through evapotranspiration, reducing temperatures of the roof surface and the surrounding air. The atrium is entirely naturally ventilated, which reduces the use of artificial lightings during daytime as well.

Figure 16: Breakdown of Roof Construction

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K) Landscaping & Shading Platinum Sentral is a green oasis of pocket parks, green walls and water features, in an otherwise extremely dense urban precinct dominated by vehicular traffic. This building constrained by an existing concrete deck over Kuala Lumpur’s busiest rail lines. Platinum Sentral features numerous louvers as external sun shading devices which are placed primarily at the East and West facing facades. Platinum Sentral installed green roofs to cool buildings with extra thermal mass and evapotranspiration. Green roof helps to reduce heat island effect with pervious paving, high albedo paving, shade, and minimizing paved areas. 50% of the roof is designed to have vegetation. This prevents heat absorption by the concrete and hard paving subsequently radiate the surrounding. The green roof keeps the surrounding ambient temperature low. Platinum Sentral maximizes soft-scape and minimizes hard-scape by building 2 gardens. Trees planting is carried out for the purpose of providing shade, which reduces cooling costs and increases human comfort while they stay outdoor. Wall sheltering, where shrubbery or vines are used to create shades as well as minimizing heat absorption in order to ensure that thermal comfort is maintained for the interior of the building and basement parking lot. Water ponds are located throughout the huge hall way which assists in cooling the interior of Platinum Sentral. The use of water ponds will decrease the interior temperature through heat removal method in order to achieve and maintain thermal comfort zone.

Figure 17: Roof Garden

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6.4 Identification & Analysis of 2 Passive Design Features Through researching and analysing the building, we have identified numerous passive designs (as stated in 6.3 Passive Design Strategies, page27). But to highlight and have a more in-depth analysis on 2 specific passive design features, we have narrowed them down to the 2 most innovative and prominent features from Platinum Sentral. One of which is the huge skylight that covers almost the entire building, giving amper natural sunlight into the interior of the building. The other one was the inclined green wall system that is covering all sides of the building at particular areas. This helps cool the building down by insulating heat from the blazing sun.

Selected Feature 1: Skylight

Selected Feature 2: Inclined Green Wall System

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6.4.1 Passive Design Feature - Skylight / Sun Roof The Platinum Sentral, being Kuala Lumpur Sentral CBD’s first Green Office Campus, is a state-of-the-art campus-style office, offering seamless connectivity, a creative working environment and contemporary business lifestyle. To be eligible as one of Kuala Lumpur’s greenest buildings, the Platinum Sentral features many interesting green features, especially passive ones. One of the most notable features is its huge and wide sun roof throughout the atrium.

Reason of Choice: The design team went through numerous factors to finally come to a conclusion of using this breathtaking enormous skylight. Since the Platinum Sentral’s main goal is to meet all the standards of the GBI and achieve its green status, overcoming excessive use of artificial lightings is essential. With that in mind, a skylight solves and meets all the criteria of a green building and provides smooth natural light penetration, but another issue rises as they decided to go with these huge sun roof, which is the heat gain in the building. To resolve that, Platinum Sentral installed both flat metal roof and atrium roof. Metal roof has coatings that prevent 75 to 80 percent of the sun’s energy from being absorbed into the roof, which then reduces roof surface temperature and minimize the heat gain towards the interior of the building. The atrium is entirely naturally ventilated, bringing office workers and public together with a sense of discovery at the main walkway in this building.

Figure 18: Skylight of the Main Atrium

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Definition of Skylight: Skylight, also known as daylighting or sun roof, is the practice of placing windows or other openings and reflective surfaces so that during the day natural light provides effective internal lighting. Particular attention is given to daylighting while designing a building when the aim is to maximize visual comfort or to reduce energy use. Energy savings can be achieved either from the reduced use of artificial (electric) lighting or from passive solar heating or cooling. Artificial lighting energy use can be reduced by simply installing fewer electric lights because daylight is present, or by dimming/switching electric lights automatically in response to the presence of daylight, a process known as daylight harvesting.

Figure 19 & 20: Skylight acting upon its environment

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Advantages: - Creates a sense of space and airiness, making the atrium look even brighter and more spacious. - Zero energy consumption, clean and friendly to the environment. - Cost efficient in the long run. - Provides good natural lighting for interior greeneries. Disadvantages: - Although it doesn’t cost much for ordinary skylights, the skylight in Platinum Sentral is extra costly given the fact that it is extremely enormous and it features coatings that prevent 75 to 80 percent of the sun’s energy from being absorbed into the roof. - Even with coatings, a certain amount of heat is still able to penetrate the skylight and the atrium still gets a little warm. - Skylight isn’t too effective during cloudy or rainy days, which is often found in the nature of Malaysian climate.

Figure 21: Simple diagram of skylight operation

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Additional Features: One of its interesting additional features is the skylights that are place on the ground level. Skylights are usually found on roofs or high places as light can be capture easier that way. But Platinum Sentral adopted an innovative approach by placing skylights on the ground to allow natural sunlight to penetrate into the basement level, which is the car park.

Figure 22 & 23: Basement Skylights

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Basement is usually one of the most artificial light dependent areas in every building. With these skylight, Plantinum Sentral manages to cut down on the usage of artificial lightings and yet providing the necessary amount of light in the basement.

Figure 24: Basement Skylight acting upon its environment

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6.4.2 Passive Design Feature - Inclined Green Wall System With the growth of urbanization, Kuala Lumpur is converted into a concrete jungle day by day and consequently reducing the greenery. The design team of Platinum Sentral has taken measures to bring in the greenery in every little available area along with its beautification. One of the most significant feature is the 2000 m2 of inclined green wall system landscaping to the podium that surrounds the entire building.

Reason of choice: The inclined green wall system was a response by the design team to the urban heat islands and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Besides, the increased amount of hard surfaces from the roads and concrete buildings contributed to higher temperature in cities, and caused the storm water to runoff. The fast development around Platinum Sentral also degraded air quality and noise, created health problem of the public around the workspace. In solution, the inclined green wall system became part of the design strategy that effectively improves the thermal performances of Platinum Sentral, thereby contributing to lower energy use and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Including the green wall system also able to remove air impurities, which contribute to improved indoor air quality, workplace productivity and well-being.

Figure 25: Inclined Green Wall System

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Definition of Incline Green Wall System: A green wall is pretty much just what it sounds like: a wall—either free-standing or part of a building—that’s covered in vegetation. The term refers to both green facades and living walls. Both can be used in a residential structure or a commercial building. The green facade can only be installed on an outdoor wall, while the living wall can function either as an outdoor or indoor wall. With this structure, plants—either climbing plants or cascading groundcover —typically climb up the wall towards the sun, while the roots remain in the ground. More recently, however, green facades are designed with special structures to support the plants.

Figure 26: Breakdown of Green Wall System

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Support systems include modular trellis systems and systems utilizing cables and rope wires. Because a green facade uses no soil, it does not rely on fertilizer, but on water accessed through hydroponic systems. However, typically comprised of interconnecting panels that hold geotextiles, a growing medium (soil or alternative) and some sort of built-in irrigation system, a green wall is fairly high maintenance to install.

1. In-unit grey water storage tank 2. Fresh water grey water control valve 3. Supply pipes to green wall panels 4. Plants grow out from panels 5. Floor gutter catches excess water

Figure 27: Simple diagram of green wall installation

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Advantages: - Secure property boundaries. -Plants act as shading devices, thereby helping to regulate the internal temperature of the building. -Amazing visual effect -Absorbs a significant amount of rainfall and therefore provides storm water management. -Can mitigate the heat island effect and help cool the city’s overall temperature. -Can be a natural habitat for animals and insects. Disadvantages: - Complicated irrigation system with sensors - Heavier structure - Higher capital and maintenance cost - Irrigation and nutrient supply system obligatory

Figure 28 & 29: Birds were flying around the green wall during our visit to Platinum Sentral

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Additional Features: The inclined green wall system also serve as a function of reducing the noise and provides sound insulation. As the soft surface of the plant tends to reflect sound from the surrounding environment, especially the construction progress that is undergoing heavily around it.

The green wall also able to form a barrier in between the external and internal space to block high velocity wind from entering the building. It could reduce the risk of the wind impacting on the building structure in the long run and therefore allows the building to last longer.

Figure 30: Inclined Green Wall System

Figure 31: Simple diagram of green wall operation

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7.0 Active Design Strategies

As energy is considered by many to be the most important category becoming sustainable, which is why it’s the heaviest weighted of all the categories in LEED rating system. Energy efficient design in many ways have direct linked to passive design principles and strategies. Therefore concept of Overall Thermal Transfer Value (OTTV) is developed in design of building envelope to achieve energy efficiency.

The diagram above is the calculation method of OTTV. The concept is based on the assumption that the envelope of a building is completely enclosed. It comprises of ETTV and RTTV. But as the Singapore National Library is a high rise building, it’s less likely to have much RTTV. Parameters which are affecting OTTV of a building are building design, climatic, and local. Building design will be building orientation, envelope color and so on; climatic would have solar radiation, wind speeds, humidity and the others; while as the local focuses in the indoor comfort conditions. Which is the reason why differences of indoor and outdoor temperatures, the solar factor and the equivalent temperature difference are important (the datas which we had to research on previously), cause all these affects the value of OTTV in LEED system. Therefore, active design strategies are strategies that uses equipment to modify the state of the building, create energy and comfort, for examples, fans, lights, pumps etc, which helps to improves the OTTV, especially for the local parameters. The belows are the simulated devices which are used in the Platinum KL Sentral: - All escalator features motion sensors. - Provision of motion sensors for all toilets and staircases (0.18% savings). - All sub-meters of leak detection in the toilets are linked back to the Building Management System (BMS).

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- Air conditioning system uses District Cooling System. - Air Handling Units System is design at 0.4W/cubic meter per hour (CMH). - CO2 sensors are designed for regulating outdoor airflow. - Provision of Energy Efficient Lighting, such as, Light-Emitting Diode (LED) and T5 fittings. Savings of 46% better than code of practice. - Mechanical ventilation system coupled with CO sensors at basement car parks. - Atrium is naturally ventilated with the aid of mechanical ventilation system. - Heat Recovery Wheel System is designed for pre-cooling and removing moisture from the fresh air entering the building (3.34% savings). - Photo sensors to maximize the use of day-lighting. - Rainwater harvesting system with filtration Irrigation System. - Ductless Mechanical Ventilation System is designed to achieve 0.83% savings.

Figure 32 & 33: Active Features, Thermal Sensor (Left) Motion Sensor (Right)

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8.0 Conclusion

Choosing our KL site wasn’t easy since lecturers do not allow a repetition in selection of building. We were fortunate enough to be able to select the Platinum Sentral as our researching subject. We initially chose One City Mall which is located in PJ. We then switched to Platinum Sentral as we were able to grab hold on some interesting info of Platinum Sentral and as its name suggests, it is a certified platinum green building by the GBI and also the GMA of Singapore. Being built in the heart of KL Sentral, Platinum Sentral remains one of the greenest building around. We visited the building during the weekends as the building is essentially an office block and to gain excess around the building on weekdays isn’t allowed. Just like the Singapore site visit, we did all our necessary researches before hand. Prominent passive features were identified and a series of data were collected during the visit. Many photos were taken too as we tour through the building while admiring its fine architecture. Places like the gardens are especially nice to work at as it features many innovative passive strategies like skylights for the basement and water ponds to cool the building down. In summary, we were glad to be able to work on a report for such an architecture beauty, the Platinum Sentral. Through completing this report, we learned not just the passive design strategies, but also to analyze and land our opinions on improvements or alternatives. With proper guidance from our tutors Mr Bruce Lee and Mr Prince, we also learned to compile our findings and analytic data efficiently.

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9.0 References

Book:

Carles B., Jay N. (2001) Eco-Friendly Architecture. Barcelona: Links International.

Dejan M., Mat S. (2013). A Handbook of Sustainable Building Design and Engineering: "An

Integrated Approach to Energy, Health and Operational Performance". London, UK: Routledge.

Dennis F. (2008). Being Sustainable: Building Systems Performance. USA: Insitebuilders.

Jerry Y. (2007). The Green Building Revolution. USA: Island Press.

Jerry Y., Ulf M. (2013). The World's Greenest Buildings: Promise Versus Performance in

Sustainable Design. USA: Routledge.

Marian K., Bill B. (2013). Fundamentals of Integrated Design for Sustainable Building. New Jersey:

John Wiley & Sons.

Michael B., Peter M., Michael S. (2009). Green Building: Guidebook for Sustainable Architecture.

Germany: Springer.

Nicola M. (2001). Towards Sustainable Building. Netherland: Springer.

Website:

Aesthetic and Environmental Benefits (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://liveroof.com/aesthetic-and-environmental-benefits/ .

Martin H. (June 15, 2009). Designing a Good Ventilation System. Retrieved from

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/designing-good-ventilation-system.

MRCB Corporate Social Responsibility Report. (2001). Retrieved from

http://www.unglobalcompact.org/system/attachments/14262/original/MRCB_CSR_3105.pdf?1

330394589.

William L. (March, 2001). An Introduction to Insulating Glass. Retrieved from

http://www.igmaonline.org/technical/Lingnell%20-%20An%20Introduction%20to%20Insulating

%20Glass.ppt.pdf.