Year of work in progress: 2010

Personal work: IED workshop home

Graduate school: Istituto Europeo di Design, Turin

Project strategies: Thermal analysis, climate and traditional architecture strategies study

 

These houses designed for the city of Algiers comes up from the research project “La Casa 100K” from the Arch. Mario Cucinella. The main goal was to have a prefabricated house with the desired distribution, local materials, with low environmental impact, low cost and with zero CO2 emission. The traditional architecture and Algier's climate was took as a start point for the design process. It was chosen for the building apartments elements such as internal gardens, wind ventilators in walls and wind tubes, as well as the solar panels and rain water collectors.

 

The shadow analysis for the courtyard was made with the stereographic diagram by selecting three points of the area to see the direct sun and shadow effect during the whole year. The main strategy to maintain the houses in the comfort thermal zone is the use of Wind Towers. These traditional systems has been used in this part of the arabic world from the middle ages until the 20th century. They consist in catching the higher air flow from the big tower top part and passing this air through the big column until aproximately three meters underground. At this point, the air gets the ground stable temperature and then it is distributed through designed floor passages.

 

The balcony design is inspired by the mashrabiyas, which are the niches used to store vessels of drinking water in order to keep the water cool. These wooden screen with openable windows gives shade and protection from the hot summer sun while allowing the cool air from the street to flow throug.The grilles are traditionally made from short lengths of turned wood joined together through polygonal blocks so that they form large areas of lattice-like patterns. The patterns formed by the lattice work vary from place to place although commonly the main lines of the grille are at a 45 degree angle. The gap between layers allows air to circulate, contributing to passive cooling.

 

OVERALL ENERGY CONSUMPTION : 2,673.14 KWh/year (single 100 m2 house) PV PRODUCTIVITY (h eq. /year): Inclination 34 grades 1,600 KW h el /year 3. Size the PV System: Equivalent hours in Algiers: 1,600 heq32,077.68 KWh/year / 1,600 heq = 20 KWpInstall a 20 KWp system (using silicon photovoltaic cells a 1 KWp equals to 8 m2 PV panels:20 KWp x 8m2/KWp = 160 mq PV cells