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| © Harunori Noda |
The urban heat island effect - the hot, overwhelming
temperatures that a city’s concrete produces – has a huge impact on livability
and comfort within the city. Now, an elegant cooling system has been designed
that not only reduces energy usage, but – should it be installed on multiple
buildings – could even lower the overall temperature of a city itself. Learn
more, after the break.
Designed by Nikken Sekkei, The Sony City Osaki Building,
which recently won the 2014 Tall Building Innovation Award from the Council on
Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), features an innovative new cooling
system: a skin of water-filled ceramic pipes known as BioSkin. BioSkin reduces
the surface temperature of a building up to 12°C, and can even lower the
micro-climate surrounding the building 2°C. The CTBUH explains how:
“The simplicity of the system is elegant. The BioSkin tubes
are made of extruded aluminum cores, with a highly water-retentive terra-cotta
shell attached to the aluminum core using an elastic adhesive. When rainwater
collects on the rooftop, it is then drained to a subsurface storage tank, where
it is filtered and sterilized. This water is then pumped up and circulated
through the pipes, which in the live test case were incorporated as balcony
railings on a Tokyo office building, reminiscent of the horizontal screens seen
throughout Japan and known as sudare. Rainwater penetrates outward through the
porous ceramic, evaporating from the pipe’s surface, cooling the surrounding
air. Excess water is then drained down to the soil of the premises to the
extent possible, normalizing the water cycle and reducing the load on sewage
infrastructure.”
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