House of Greens
Approach to entrance
INSIGHT
In an attempt to explore my green thumb, I also found myself looking at details and videos on how to build a greenhouse. Naturally, ambitions kicked in and instead, I decided to design an unconventional large-scale greenhouse. I wanted to take this opportunity to look at water reticulation services, plumbing dispersion techniques and some lighting methods that might make the aesthetics of it all a bit more interesting.
CONCEPT
Pedestrian approach & exploded axo
A number of precedence used, showed a typical greenhouse designs reflecting 6 functional facades. On the short ends, they were used as entrances and on the longer facades (sides), they were used as row and stack lanes to implement the planters for the variety of plants in-house.
Ideally, I wanted to make use of the super-structure triangulated form of a typical greenhouse design, to see how I could rearrange and custom design components that normally come pre-built for these types of services.
This was a great opportunity to explore and learn more about technical aspects in the world of agriculture, including UV lighting, automated services coordination as well as the differences between various glass types and their impact on the controlled environment.
As a setting, I perceived this structure being placed in a park-like environment, set aside from the typical traffic. This gave me a bit of space to create an atmosphere around the greenhouse and use the envelope design as a limited threshold between internal and external.
SECTIONAL ISOs
Iso & Perspective at pedestrian entry
To try and not complicate the design, I used a concrete wall to set the structural base for the steel and glass components to span from one side and tie down to the other.
Structurally, I used a grid of 2.0m in glazing exposed areas and 4.0m for areas where the cladded sheeting was fixed. This similarity in spacing allowed for a 2.0m grid for pre-fab
I-beams to be fixed to these concrete walls and erected to create a rib-like series of frames. Services can then be attached to these structural elements in a fashion that also helps conceal details.
Perspective at lower-green planter & Iso
My research showed that whilst it is common for livable spaces to make use of double glazed facades, the nature of the greenhouse actually disregards the necessity for extra layers of glazing. That being said, what does need to be considered is the type of the glass and the environment it will create internally, with regards to the level of lighting and atmosphere controlled in the greenhouse.
I found that UV laminated glass was a recommended type of curved glass which gave it the flexibility to curve to the extent in which I had designed it to. Using tempered glass would then optimize the sizes of the straight glass panels, framed in powder coated aluminium frames to maintain the large spans but also remain strengthened capacity under different weather conditions.
To try and create cooler patches internally, I also added in patterned shading screens and louvers, regularly coated with zinc-based chemical flakes. Typically, when the sprinkler systems increased the humidity, these flakes would react to the humidity and fall off to plants as a supplementary product to help promote low-doses for stimulated growth.
Iso & Perspective towards services entrance
To balance the impact of the having extensive services visually imposing on the design of the architecture, I looked at how my structural components could become part of the services.
The coated horizontal hollow core frames that served as the base structure for the glass panels are multi-purposed as trunking to funnel in electrical cables from the transformers. The hollow cores are then cut into, for access panels, and connected to the respective lighting components.
The UV lighting has been scientifically proven to have an influential effect on providing plants with a spectrum of rays that help stimulate optimal growth. As opposed to the traditional box-set of down-lights, I went with proposing a 300 degree coverage plate, which connected to the feed from the hollow core trunking. This created the opportunity to further ornate the structural elements with colorful lighting, hiding the service hatches.
Water reticulation needed to be as reliant on gravity feeds as possible and thus the provision of an octopus-like pressure-based sprinkler unit that is fed from connection pipes fixed to the super structure. The units, operate on a set of rolling wheels which can be contracted and extended repeatedly to ensure that all planters of the greenhouse were extensively covered.
DETAILS
Typical short-section
Typical short-section
Related to surface materials, I wanted to explore a variety of standard materials that gave the building a warmer aesthetic. Inclusive to that, research also showed that greenhouses surfaces consistently require maintenance due to soil displacement, leaves falling and the occasional residue from the plant-hydration sessions.
This lead to thinking about how to disperse of water and other waste removed from the growth floor. This amounted to implementing 2 internal channel drain systems which have roller tracks for the sprinkler units. These drains then extend to the service entrances and can be cleaned regularly with high-pressured hose pipes. The planters are each fitted with a multi-layered sub-terrain fill that conceals the full bore outlets. Should there ever be flooding in the planter, funnels can be dug into the planter to create an avenue for the excess water to flood towards, leading to the external channel drains which can be maintained in the same fashion.
IMAGES
Below are the standalone images that compile this concept design.
