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[trilitica]

Hello!

4 Storied Office Building Design, Bucharest, Romania







Please feel free to comment!

[starkca3]

soo are is the lime green there the window shades? Or are they colored glass? And if they are shades, are they partially transparent? either way. i like how it looks

[csintexas]

Well I gave it a very nice only because I don't think it is ugly. A prof. once told me to be careful with the color yellow because it tends to make people look sick.

The frame seems a bit heavy and and I don't care for the yellow tiles on the base.

What do you think about it?

[trilitica]

The yellows are colored opaque glass panels. No yellow light will pass into the building.

Actually I calculated that at least 20% of the summer light will be shaded by the exterior concrete frame, wich will lead to a lower cooling costs during hot days (up to 30-35 Celsius degrees during summer).

The structure isn't quite heavy. Bucharest is a city where 7.0 up to 7.4 Richter Scale earthquakes were recorded.

Well, thanks for your votes! This way, I won't have to vote myself!

[csintexas]

[nanrehvasconez]

Congratulations Octavian, your building is very hanson and within the times, the amount of glass in your building could be used advantageously in heating and cooling the building as in many sophisticated modern buildings around the planet.

Solar Glass is used extensibly in Europe, Dubai, Asia and Brazil. (See article below)

Polarized glass has great insulating qualities, used in many Dubai buildings.

The steel structure as designed, prima facia, will probably exceed seismic requirements as per the American North West seismic Building Codes.

As for Chris Stewart aka MODERN Texas Home Project provably has not idea of the structural qualities of steel.

Do not pay attention to Chris Stewart, aka MODERN Texas Home Project, he does not know anything about modern or estethics; if you have seen Chris Stewart MODERN designs previously posted in this forum, you will understand that he has no qualifications to critcize you, he produces unadulterated crap and his architect's qualifications shown in his work, may be a piece of paper hanging in his wall and the memories of wasted time in college.

Is this Chris Stewart the same Chris Stewart that invented the structural coat of paint and sold the Brooklyn bridge?

Who kows.

If I was Chris Stewart aka MODERN Texas Home Project, I will get a job in Walmart and live happily ever after, architecture, not so much.
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Building-Integrated Solar Glass in a Nutshell
Building-integrated solar glass generates electricity, often qualifies for financial incentives, and has the uniqueness of custom glazing that generates electricity. (Photos)

Denis Du Bois
September 08, 2005

Building-integrated solar glass generates electricity, often qualifies for financial incentives, and has the uniqueness of custom glazing that generates electricity. (Solar Design Associates photo)

What it is Building-integrated solar glass modules are architectural glass products that replace standard glazing in commercial buildings. Embedded in the glass are photovoltaic cells, spaced apart to allow light to pass between them. The building's architect selects the shape and color of the embedded cells and the desired spacing.
Why it matters
The long-term implication of integrated solar glass is two-fold: It's a renewable energy source that is aesthetically pleasing and therefore hardly objectionable to neighbors; and it occupies building surfaces that would otherwise require reflective glass and window shades to avoid energy (heat) gain from the sun.

A walkway canopy protects visitors as they enter the MITRE Center, and generates solar power. The feature served as a catalyst for the design team's excitement about sustainable design overall. (Stubbins Associates photo)

Other forms of building-integrated photovoltaics include solar roofing materials, which are out of sight, utilize otherwise wasted space, and add insulation.
Who makes it
Solar Design Associates specified and supplied the solar components for the MITRE Center's solar canopy, built in 2005. They recommended modules from the Dutch company Scheuten (pronounced like a cross between "shoyten" and "sweeten") Solar. Other companies, including Saint Gobain and Spheral, also manufacture building-integrated solar glass.

What it costs
"Any time an architect is considering unique glass for their buildings, we like to present them with the option of using productive glass, glass that produces electricity," says Craig Munger, electrical engineer for Solar Design Associates.

Does it cost more to use energy-producing glass? Before financial incentives, yes. After incentives… generally, yes. Unless you compare it to another truly unique form of custom glazing.

"Using ordinary glass in the MITRE canopy would have been around US$20 per square foot, where the custom electricity-producing glass was between $80 and $100," says Munger. There's also the cost of wiring, concealed conduits, and balance-of-system components like inverters.

Why consider it
On a strict analysis of energy cost savings, integrated solar glass rarely pays for itself. But that doesn't deter architects and owners around the world from installing it. Solar glass generates electricity at a predictable cost, qualifies for financial incentives and often has publicity value. Not to mention the uniqueness of a building with custom glazing that generates electricity.

Says Munger, "When people find out about financial incentives, and they see solar glass as a way to set their building apart, they get excited about it."

============================================


Date 3.1.2003

Submitted by Jerry Anoia < - blocked - >

Title Polarized Glass

Source Pebble in the Sky - Isaac Asimov 1950
http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/asimov_catalogue.html
http://www.sfreviews.net/pebblesky.html

Context When the scientist were in there lab they viewed the subject through the polarized glass wall. When they wanted some privacy they applied the electrically charge making it opaque.

Description Polarized glass

Comments 1950 used by Isaac Asimov in his novel Pebble in the Sky. Polarized Glass was developed by Corning in 1980. Of course from the genius that was talking about hand held calculators in the late 30's, what do you expect.
http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/asimov_catalogue.html
http://www.sfreviews.net/pebblesky.html

Feasibility Tried & Tested

Keywords glass , polarized

[csintexas]

Goodness gracious nanrehvasconez you are an idiot.

[cousinbirgco]

here here, we have a second on that motion.......

[cousinbirgco]

Color questions aside, I prefer it to some of the modern commercial structures I have seen here built in the metro ny area. The structural/ mass look and function is certainly not a bad idea especially with the possibility of disasters (man-made and natural) lurking behind every corner. It may just be my monitor, but the building almost looks like a
computer generated superimposed image onto an existing cityscape.
Anyway, good effort IMHO.

[trilitica]

Well, it is a computer image right now...

The construction will start in 2009 spring. It isn't possible to work during winter due to the sensibility of the concrete at temperatures bellow freezing point of water.

A Steel structure wouldn't be economically efficient because it is much more expensive (almost 2 times than a concrete structure).

The clime is continental temperate (during the winter with -20 Celsius degrees and in the summer up to 40 Celsius degrees), so both the heating and the cooling are important for the future building. The same is shading and wind insulation.

The yellow painted panels are made of glass, but they won't permit any light passing trough.

[Torsen]

I think it's ok. But I don't think it suits the surroundings well, its a bit of an eye saw tbh.

And the overall design is a bit incoherent, why is there some brick work and a plain white bit sticking out?

but then I'm not an architect so what do i know.

[RanjeetS]

Its a kind of Piet Mondrian meets Guiseppe Terrangi. Maybe the diaganol structure is too thick, making it seem almost heavy/brutal. Have a look at guiseppe terragni and his stuff in como.

All in all its nice though...

[WalkerARCHITECTS]

Your building is interesting, captured my eye and I only offer my honest critique because it is a note worthy work.

The building is heavy looking. It has a feeling of constraint about it like a giant cage for office workers. It is like glass clad modernism imprisoned inside a massive brutal steel cage. The colors are playful, dancing patterns and very intriguing but locked inside a cage, perhaps in some respects a symbol of repressed freedom trying to break free of a strict system of constraints.

It is, as an architectural work, too contrapuntal for my taste, the rhythms of glass discordant with the the steel exoskeleton, too complex and heavy to be accidental or driven by structural design & it embodies a great deal of dynamic visual tension. It is however also very fresh and impossible to not look at; I voted a solid I don't know. What is it like inside?

TLW

[trilitica]

I didn't think that I would be happy to see an "I don't know" to this poll.

I must confess that my clients were intrigued too. They liked it, then disliked it. Now they changed their minds too and like it again.

We started a poll here at our studio too, but see, my colleagues all voted "yes". But they might be somehow not very comfortable to tell me, the big boss, that they don't like it.

The area were it will be built it is very contrasting too. Even that it is in the heart of the city, it is under huge blocks of flats that you can see in the background. All other buildings are more 2-3 storied housing, very eclectic. It is somehow as a village behind large block of flats. Bucharest is often like this due to a modernist and communist intervention to its core.

All Bucharest is a mixture of a good French School (a small Paris), a modernist Hausmann-Kim Ir Sen intervention and a rookie Le Corbusier. But somehow the city survived and despite more hard interventions, it is blossoming again.

We, the Romanians, are the human face of this city: a huge Ego, a big stress and most of all a big contradiction. Mostly a contradiction for ourselves.

[toufic]

The exoskeleton shouldn't have followed the same facade modular panels because it's an isolated elemet in itself.I see the exoskeleton as a solid envelope embracing the glass building with a separate identity.
I think there shoul've been a contrast between the modular glass elements and the outer exoskeleton (am speaking of a similar treatment to Bird's Nest, the Olympic stadium in China....)