Heating, Cooling, Lighting: Design Methods for Architects - Hardcover

Lechner, Norbert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471628875 ISBN 13: 9780471628873

Publisher: Wiley-Interscience, 1991

Synopsis

Using a qualitative rather than a quantitative approach, presents detailed information based on concepts, rules, guidelines, intuition, and experience for architects in the areas of heating, cooling, and lighting at the schematic design stage. The data explored supports a three-tiered approach--load avoidance, using natural energy sources, and mechanical equipment. Among the topics covered are shading, thermal envelope, passive heating and cooling, electric lighting, and HVAC. Case studies illustrate how certain buildings use techniques at all three tiers for heating, cooling, and lighting. An appendix lists some of the more appropriate computer programs available to the architect for analysis at the schematic design stage.

About this title

About the Author

About the author NORBERT LECHNER, Registered Architect, is Associate Professor in the Building Science Department, School of Architecture, Auburn University. He is also a consultant to design studios on matters of environmental systems and structures. He received his bachelor of architecture degree from the City University of New York and his master of science in architectural technology from Columbia University. He is a frequent contributor to Architectural Lighting magazine.

From the Inside Flap

For the architectural designer, the schematic design stage offers the greatest opportunity to impact a building’s performance, efficiency, and appearance. The right decisions—made early enough—save millions of dollars in building and operating costs. Decisions that promote comfort and energy efficiency can also result in exciting design solutions. But getting the information essential to good design is not easy. It must be detailed enough to help in decision making, but not so detailed or unwieldy as to distract the designer from his mission of creating an integrated and coherent whole. That’s why this book was written by an architect to help other architects find the most relevant information and practical tools available to them when designing heating, cooling, and lighting systems. The design tools are mainly concepts, guidelines, handy rules of thumb, examples, and physical modeling. They not only solve problems but also promote the designer’s knowledge and intuition. This in-depth but uncluttered approach—free of distracting mathematical analysis—accounts for the book’s unique qualitative, rather than quantitative, outlook on design problems. Using a three-tiered approach, Heating, Cooling, Lighting: Design Methods for Architects systematically and methodically seeks solutions to some of a building’s most difficult design problems. The first tier centers on load avoidance. Here the need for heating, cooling, and lighting is minimized by the design of the building itself. The second tier consists of making maximal use of a building’s natural energies. The third tier concerns itself with using mechanical equipment to meet the needs not met by tiers one and two. In a progressive format, each chapter, supplemented with case studies, builds fluency and mastery in design technique, allowing the designer to tackle each of the challenges inherent in tiers one through three. Striking photographs and drawings of buildings by famous architects not only illustrate specific ideas but also underscore the fundamental role of environmental systems as form-givers in architecture. Each topic is introduced by an historical overview, supplemented with numerous examples, firmly establishing the context of environmental systems in architectural design. Heating, Cooling, Lighting: Design Methods for Architects is that valuable architect’s and designer’s tool—a handbook of environmentally sound design techniques that will help you build enduring, aesthetically vibrant architecture.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley-Interscience
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0471628875
• ISBN 13: 9780471628873
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 544