Energy Efficient buildings of Africa

[Tbite]

Bookshop House Lagos

It is one of the few early buildings in Nigeria to have a façade correctly designed to exclude direct sunlight between the hours of 9am & 5pm for energy efficiency. The special sun screens (sun breakers) and windows alleviate the effects of the climate with a 75% savings on air conditioning requirement for the office floors. The building is dark at the bottom and light at the top.

http://www.detomosabroad.com/?p=1213

Eastgate Centre, Harare

Designed by the architect Mick Pearce in conjunction with engineers at Arup Associates, Eastgate Building in Harare, Zimbabwe, is just one example of sustainable architecture that uses dramatically less energy by copying the successful strategies of indigenous natural systems. The building - the country's largest commercial and shopping complex - uses the same heating and cooling principles as a local termite mound.

That's no mean feat. Termite mounds are marvels of engineering. Deep inside, the insects farm a fungus, their only food. It must be kept at exactly 87 degrees, while the temperatures on the African veld outside range from 35 degrees at night to 104 degrees during the day.

They do it by venting breezes in at the base of the mound, down into chambers cooled by wet mud carried up from water tables far below, and up through a flue to the peak. Toiling with the tireless, compulsive work ethic of all ants, they constantly dig new vents and plug old ones to regulate the temperature.

Temperature regulation is a struggle familiar to any architect. Mick Pearce of the Pearce Partnership was given a challenge by Old Mutual, an insurance and real estate conglomerate: build an office block that would be livable with no air-conditioning and almost no heating.

This is a terrific example of sustainable architecture that is biomimetic, indigenous, and economically viable on its face. Yet the Eastgate story also demonstrates an important aspect of the sustainability/biomimicry trend - that incrementally greater value may be found by studying solutions from those niches (ecological and economic) where resources are more constrained than the ones you inhabit. Don't study the oasis - study the desert.
Termite Mounds Inspire Design of Zimbabwe Office Complex.

The complex is actually two buildings linked by bridges across a shady, glass-roofed atrium open to the breezes.

To keep the harsh highveld sun from heating the interior, no more than 25 percent of the outside is glass, and all the windows are screened by an unusual form of sunshade: racks of cement arches that jut out more than a yard.

Fans suck fresh air in from the atrium, blow it upstairs through hollow spaces under the floors and from there into each office through baseboard vents. As it rises and warms, it is drawn out through ceiling vents. Finally, it exits through 48 round brick chimneys.

During summer's cool nights, big fans flush air through the building seven times an hour to chill the hollow floors. By day, smaller fans blow two changes of air an hour through the building, taking advantage of what Pearce calls "the coolth in the slab." For winter days, there are small heaters in the vents.

- The Eastgate's owners saved $3.5 million on a $36 million building because an air-conditioning plant didn't have to be imported
- The building uses less than 10 percent of the energy of a conventional building its size.

http://nat-envir-sun.blogspot.com/20...e-modeled.html

[Ras Siyan]

Great thread!

[arzaranh]

Originally Posted by Ras Siyan

Great thread!

i concur

[hsark]

east gate is the most famous one as it was done before green buildings became vogue the guy who did also did the ch2 building in melbourne it was a south african dude can't remember his name...bt. both of his building where cast studies for my green architecture course

[Xusein]

Wow, the design of the Eastgate Centre is very interesting. Modernity copying nature at its best. Great thread, Tbite.

[Lydon]

South Africa has a green rating agency called the Green Building Council of South Africa. It awards buildings a number of stars based upon how green they are.

Aurecon recently achieved the country's first 5-star Green Star rated building in Cape Town:




That was quickly trumped by Vodacom's new Innovation Centre in Gauteng, which is currently under construction. It received the country's first 6-star Green star rating:



Green buildings have become all the rage down here and most new high-profile developments are applying for Green Stars.

[VegaM]

Maroc Telecom future Headquarter (Rabat, Morocco), an another example of example of sustainable architecture

Originally Posted by yan_95

image hosted on flickr


Tour Maroc Telecom - Rabat by Ωρτimuş

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/newrep...ply&p=83719524

[Tbite]

There is a LEED building U/C in Lagos but it is not yet completed.

There is also another LEED building planned for Lagos Island.

[Naijaborn]

Originally Posted by Tbite

There is a LEED building U/C in Lagos but it is not yet completed.

There is also another LEED building planned for Lagos Island.

Which?

[hsark]

LEED is a pretty high rating superceeds greenstar to me on most levels which building in lagos this is great news.....german architects use leed and their annal buggers....and do u have what idea of rating they might get?

[Tbite]

Well a lot of buildings aren't as Green as they appear on paper..because the way a building is designed is not equal to how it is utilized, but this building is essentially designed to be a LEED Gold building potentially and it is already U/C

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1435114

Eko Financial Centre that is not U/C is also designed to be potentially LEED certified

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1332557

Central Bank of Nigeria, Abuja is an advanced building, but I am not sure if it is energy efficient, although it would meet some requirements due to to its waste management systems.

[xJamaax]

It would have been good to see many projects going green or involving energy saving mechanism. Most of the current projects dont think it's necessary to try these methods out. In future I'm sure many will feature all these green tech and methods.

[Lydon]

Hotel Verde - soon to be built in Cape Town - will be the greenest hotel in Africa upon completion in 2013. They're applying for a LEED rating.

image hosted on flickr

[Tbite]

First Building in the Southern Hemisphere to receive a BREEAM rating

Mauritius Commercial Bank - Ebene

This unusually shaped building is located outside Port Louis. The 10-storey 10,000m² building comprises open plan offices, auditoria, a canteen and ancillary spaces.
The building was the first in the Southern Hemisphere to achieve a BREEAM rating, through attention to orientation, shading, renewable energy and rainwater re-use. The carefully chosen building orientation ensures that the façades face due north and south with generous overhangs which virtually eliminate all direct solar gains.
Energy consumption is minimised by making use of free cooling where possible and a 980m² photovoltaic farm will further provide renewable energy. Rainwater is harvested and stored in below-ground concrete tanks and fresh air is provided using a floor displacement ventilation system. Construction is underway and final completion is due for the end of the year.

ARUP

[Nostra]

Deeeyaam! Now that's futuristic...

[Naijaborn]

Saw the Mauritian building, and was like WTF!!!
shit looks like a wine barrel-casket.

[CasaMor]

Cute! I like it!

[Rayman87]

Fail
But according to the title of the thread, i guess it can make it.

[Lydon]

How is that a fail?

[Rayman87]

The building is nothing more than a typical greenwashing ad. Since being a treehugger became cool, this is a new kind of building fetishization that is only done by companies to remain competitive and attract more customers. Most of these buildings put an emphasis on high tech solutions to reduce waste rather than low tech solutions(which are less expensive and less CO2 emitting).
For this building, the design in itself isn't different from any other building in the world. The only diffrences is the extra cost of putting some expensive fancy high tech technology like the solar panels which can be arguably be questionable about their real effectiveness (the performance of a photovoltaic panel is between 15-17% of light conversion into electricity).
Poeple must really be careful with these voluntary certifications (LEED, BREEAM, Green Star,...). Sometimes it doesn't lead to a real gain of energy like some LEED certified buildings in USA.



Plus, the BREEAM certification comes from a private company funded by the building industry. So it's independency it's again questionable.
But this is a long and complicated debate about "what's a green building ?" that isn't really related to the topic.
So according to the thread, the building is ok.

ps: the design isn't that much appealing.