Keywords: Museum, Hydronic Radiant Cooling, Radiant Building Conditioning, Concrete Core Cooling, Concrete Core Conditioning, Building Conditioning, Bauteilkühlung, Resourcenschonende Gebäudekonditionierung, Heizung, Klima, Lüftung, Kühldecke, Energy-Efficient Conditioning, Energy Efficiency

NEW UPDATE May 8, 2001

IES INTERNATIONAL ENERGY STUDIES, INC.
Berkeley CA 94707-0617

 

Kunsthaus Bregenz

Museum

 

View of the Museum (South Facade) Photo: Courtesy of Atelier Zumthor

Museums have exhibit areas, working areas, offices, and storage areas. In areas with art exhibits, ambient conditions should not vary in temperature or relative humidity. The most difficult problem encountered in designing a thermal conditioning system for a museum is that partitioned areas may change from one exhibition to another. For air-conditioned museums, partitions may create local pockets of stale air.

In the occupied zone, the three exhibition halls (floors two through four) have exterior concrete walls. Above the suspended ceiling made of frosted glass panels there is a continuous window band, which is only interrupted by the south-facing stair case. During daytime, these plenums provide daylighting to the exhibition halls. Artificial lighting is also located in the plenum space.

All four stories above ground are covered by a second envelope containing of frosted glass shingles. This arrangement provides a well-vented space between the two envelopes and prevents direct sunlight entering the light-wells above the exhibition halls.

View from the City
(Photo courtesy of hef, May 5,2001)

View from Promenade
(Photo courtesy of hef, May 5,2001)

View from Train Station "Bregenz Hafen"
(Photo courtesy of hef, May 5,2001)

 

In Bregenz, a radically new concept for conditioning a museum was developed. The thermal conditioning is provided by means of hydronic radiant conditioning. The exterior walls, the floor, and the ceiling slab are all equipped with water cooled tubes (concrete core conditioning CCC). The design amount of air supplied is based on ventilation requirements, not on removing thermal loads. Temperatures and relative humidity are allowed to swing between pre-defined limits.

The design is based on the fact, that sensible loads from occupants coincide with latent loads. As air can store more humidity when warm, increased air temperatures can absorb additional humidity without increasing the relative humidity. Therefore, the amount of humidity to be removed when occupancy increases is relatively small.

Thermal building simulations using RADCOOL were used to determine temperature and humidity profiles for different occupant situations. Different air circulation designs between the three exhibition halls were tested using the multizone air flow model COMIS. Furthermore, we studied the humidity gradients close to the conditioned walls in detail.

The Kunsthaus by Night (Photo courtesy Vorarlberger Nachricheten, July 25, 1997)

Kunsthaus Bregenz, Exhibition Hall (Photo courtesy of Neue Zeitung, July 20, 1997)

 

 

 


Section of Kunsthaus Bregenz (Drawing: Courtesy of Atelier Zumthor)

 

Of course, shading by surrounding building plays a major role in urban environments. The following figures show the built environment of the Kunsthaus Bregenz and the shading pattern caused by neighboring structures for the three facades for the period of the highest cooling load.


Relative shading of Facade elements (0 = no shading, 1 = total shading)

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This page was developed at IES by hef. Last changed on May 8, 2001
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