Mechanical systems / passive envelopes: integrative architectural approaches?
Two main approaches can be recognized regarding architecture and energy. On the one hand mechanical, energy intensive approach based on building services: complex networks of heating, ventilation and air conditioning that supply comfort conditions despite variable weather conditions. These are internal ducting and piping, seldom visible, supporting the building operation “from the inside”. On the other hand, passive, low-energy strategies claim for an architecture that is climate-responsive and environmentally responsible. This approach is mostly based on a careful adaptation of the building envelope, mediator between inside controlled comfort conditions and outside weather variations. Most research on façades emphasizes passive strategies, with minimum energy consumption, a paradox considering the amount of parallel development taking place in HVAC systems. However, these seemingly irreconcilable positions and practices have been showing signs of coming to terms with each other. Some 25 years ago, the development of Double-Skin Glass façades (DSFs) grew in Germany as a promising alternative to address the well-known problems of curtain walls, particularly heat loss, over-heating and noise, by combining a thermal buffer and sun protection in a ventilated glass chamber. The introduction and spread of DSFs led to increasing integration of mechanical services in the ventilated chamber, such as electric wiring and light, decentralized HKL, etc., in a compromise that brings together in a new blend these traditionally opposed strategies. In this work, I discuss the articulation of the technical fundamentals and the social mechanisms that promoted the introduction of such innovations in Germany starting in the 1990s, based on available documentation from patents, industry catalogues, contemporary literature and ex-post evaluations of the buildings. I hold that this integration process make. a case for a combined techno-social development, far from linear or objective, but intertwined with cultural and social elements, suggesting a new understanding of technical decisions presumed neutral, which needs to be accounted for in order to fully understand the development and success or failure of technological innovations in architecture.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations