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National Musem in Warsaw Extension, Simulations and Analysis

by with No Comment Wszystkie EN

In cooperation with Roark Studio and Arup, we have prepared a set of analyzes and simulations for the concept of expansion of the National Museum in Warsaw.

The property on which the competition task is to be implemented is located in a unique location – at the intersection of several viewing axes, surrounded by park greenery, with a strong context in the form of the main building of the National Museum and neighboring buildings. The implementation of the competition concept with a significant impact on the functioning and interpenetration of the city park and the activation of the museum space, which used to be the back-up area, required a thorough understanding of the context of the place.

An important issue was to define the relationship of new buildings with the form of an existing building, creating strong and clear functional and compositional-aesthetic relationships, bearing in mind that the solutions are to be feasible in the future, assuming the option of staging, economic efficiency at the implementation stage and low operating costs in during the use of the building. We adopted the relationship with the main building and the surrounding greenery, functionality and creating space for social integration as an element guiding the design process.

Climate Analysis - Warsaw

 

In order to consciously shape the space around the building, we analyzed the factors influencing the thermal comfort for the Warsaw region.

The most important factor influencing comfort is the wind, especially in winter. The use of wind and sun protection increases the number of comfortable hours by 25%

We placed the building in such a way that it would protect the public space next to the building from western winds. Such a solution, together with the remaining tree stand that gives shade in the summer season, should significantly affect the attractiveness of the space surrounding the building.

Solar Radiation

To reduce possible overheating of the building, the following assumptions were made:

– location of the main body of the building along the north-south axis

– no glazing on the southern facade not shaded by trees

– the use of movable blinds in the office part

– the use of fixed blinds in female workers from the south side

– overhang of the entrance part

The facade of the painting studio

The facade provides natural lighting for the painting studio. In order to reduce the risk of overheating the room, we used vertical blinds which obscure the glazing.

In order to select the appropriate setting of individual blinds, a series of analyzes of the insolation of the room was carried out with a different configuration of the slats. About 1000 possible configurations were analyzed. The applied solution allows the ASE ratio from 65% to 7% (the level awarded in the LEED certification), significantly reducing the possibility of overheating and too high intensity of light in the room.

Building energy analysis

Based on the energy model, we have derived the following energy strategies for the facility:

– increasing the insulation of external partitions

– insulation of cold stores from other rooms

– the use of fixed blinds on the facade of the painting studio

– the use of movable blinds on the facade of the office part.

– no windows on the south façade of the main part of the building

Heating demand

Increasing the insulation of the partitions reduces the need for heating

Solar gains

The use of a shutter system reduces solar gains in the rooms, reducing the risk of overheating.

Cold demand

Insulating cold stores and reducing solar gains reduce the need for cold.

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Simulations for Antropocen Exhibition #Water

by with No Comment Bez kategoriiWszystkie EN

As part of the Antropocene at Zodiak Warsaw Pavilion of Architecture exhibition, curated by Kacper Kępiński and Adrian Krężlik, we had the opportunity to collaborate on the project – installation the Water by Miastopracownia.

The project involves changing the geometry of the terrain of Krakowskie Błonia and the Rudawa River, in a way that allows the creation of a floodplain in order to restore the biodiversity of the area and return it to nature.

Our task was to prepare a digital model in a way that ensures the proper course of water during flooding and to perform a large-scale fluid simulation. The final simulation consisted of up to 210,000 particles, with calculations taking 16 hours.

Author’s project description, Miastopracownia:

Unsealing the embankments of the Rudawa river and releasing water from this tributary of Vistula towards Kraków’s Błonia meadow might deprive the human inhabitants of the city from the green common – but perhaps might also restore it: to wild geese, swans, weatherfish, moderlieschen, common bleak, and creek minnows.

Poland’s rivers that had been reduced to the role of sewage canals, regulated and deprived of life, cannot be patched up and healed pointwise. We need coordinated measures along the entire length of the watercourse, with deep restoration, removal of barrages, and crushing of concrete.

The section of the riverbed here presented is therefore only a small part of the proposed activities. The whole unfulfilled dream of inland navigation and the waterway of the upper Vistula should be done away with. And it should be replaced: with mallard ducks, gulls, black storks, and herons. And with the little freshwater jellyfish of Craspedacusta sowerbii species.

Water milfoil, pondweed, coontails, nuphars and water lilies form excellent breeding grounds for pike, bream, roach, and rudd. So let us give up the meadow and allow them to spawn!

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Eyetracking within public spaces

by with No Comment Wszystkie ENWyróżnione EN

How the development of biometrics can affect the quality of the built environment

Until recently, devices for biometric measurements, i.e. studying the reaction and structure of the human body, were reserved exclusively for research centers. Along with the miniaturization of components and the decrease in their production costs, they often accompany us in our everyday life. Nowadays, it is no surprise that you can unlock your computer or phone using your fingerprint or through face recognition. Watches are able to count our steps, monitor pulse and skin tension.

Nowadays, designers are beginning to look for new methods that will help to understand the reactions of users in order to have better awareness of their health and comfort. It is worth mentioning that the concept of neuromarketing has been in use since the beginning of the 21st century, but previously it was used by companies to increase product sales through suitable stylistics, ignoring the impact of a city shaped by advertising on human functioning.

Dominance of the sense of sight

The dominance of the human visual sense was scientifically proven as early as in the 1980s. One of the first studies was the experiment conducted by professor Francis B. Colavita, based on the observation of the audio-visual reaction of patients. He unequivocally determined that sight is the dominant sense in situations of intense human stimulation with a number of stimuli.

Research conducted in 2015 by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen (the Netherlands) confirmed those earlier assumptions. The study was conducted on a group of 7,500 people from 13 countries in Asia, America, Europe and Africa, who were tasked with reporting on their everyday lives   In this case, too, scientists confirmed that sight is the dominant sense, and it is the record of visual stimuli in our memory that is the strongest. Interestingly, it turned out impossible to establish a hierarchy of the remaining senses, which they found to depend on the place of origin of the research participants, resulting in a theory that the hierarchy of senses is a function of biological and cultural conditions alike.

Studies of a space of Polish cities.

In an experiment carried out by Designbotic in cooperation with Roark Studio, the impact of large-format advertising on the perception of Polish city spaces was examined. The selected public spaces include the Market Squares in Wroclaw and Poznan, the “Manhattan” Shopping Center in Gdansk, the “Central” Department Store in Bialystok and the intersection of Marszałkowska Street and Al. Jerozolimskie in Warsaw.

The study compared the original photos of cities with their modified versions that showed what a city space dominated by advertising might look like. Only in the case of Warsaw, the original photo from July this year was used, showing the immediate surroundings of the Rotunda building with large-format advertisements displayed on all nearby buildings. It is worth recalling that on 25th February this year, by the decision of the Mazowieckie Province Governor, the so-called landscape act aimed at regulating the location and form of advertising media in the city space was annulled. 

Results

In the study, selected spaces were presented to 30 people whose eyeball movement was registered using an eye-tracking device. Precisely recorded measurements made it possible to learn how human eyesight reacts to the city space. Subsequent analysis can reveal which elements are observed first, which ones attract our attention, and which ones our eyes most often return to.

In the first two seconds, the observers scanned the entire space evenly, but as the time passed their focus returned to the areas occupied by advertisements more often and for longer periods. As a result, they spent as much as 35% of the time watching advertising content that dominates the sense of sight, despite the fact that they occupied a relatively small area in the photos.

On the other hand, public spaces devoid of advertising elements allowed for eyeball movement that was more unrestrained and individual for each person, with a focus on architectural features, infrastructure and people present in the photos.