TEHRAN NATIONAL BOOK EXHIBITION

Master Thesis
Tehran, Iran 2014

project narrative

This thesis project is about redesigning an existing building which was under the construction process when this research was done. This building is an important national building in Iran and will host the international annual book exhibition and also will be the only permanent book exhibition throughout the country.
The enormous glazed facade toward the west in this building was the first perception and the willingness to study the effect of this design on sustainable aspects of the project became the motivation for starting this research.

In this photo, the site of this project is shown before the construction starts in 2005, and by hovering over the image, you can see the site during the excavation to prepare it for construction in 2007. The original topography included many peaks and valleys but a tremendous amount of soil had been removed to make the site flat for the currant building.

current design analysis

Although the project has a contemporary design that uses many innovative techniques in a positive way, this research tried to identify the disadvantages of the current design and purposes solutions for them. The first issue is about the topography of the site that is converted to the flat field and the great potential is dismissed. The amount of the soil that is removed during the site preparation phase is almost about the volume of the current construction. The site is paved and the green areas transferred to the roof which can be the indication of disregarding the site's potential in favor of having a "green roof". The whole mass of the building is along the north-south orientation and the main problem is the vast glazed facade toward the West. Moreover, the landscape on east side is providing roof access which is ended at the edge of the building and the users need to go back the way they took without having a chance to access the building or the site.

New proposal

The project is redesigned in two steps. First, is studying the context, especially climate and weather data, which led to critical design guidelines. The second step is studying the passive strategy and evaluating the potential for using them to have the most improvement.
Extracting the guidelines from this research enabled the start of the design process.

The diagram shows floor plans overlayed. The central north-south geometry acting like a shaft that other independent wings are connected to it. This shaft or saloon is stepping down in response to the site's slope and the side wings are also on the steep slope facing toward the south to use the best of the orientation. These wings have access both at the highest and lowest level to the main saloon.

1. The Main Entrance
2. Administration Zone
3. Amphitheater
4. Main Hall
5. Children Hall
6. Secondary Entrance
7. Open Exhibition
8. Parking Lot
9. Main Highway on South

proposed design

The final design is based on respecting the original site condition rather than modifying the site according to the design and enabling the building to be part of the environment. To do so, and also be able to have a fair comparison between the current construction and the proposal, the building the stretch along with the site and provide a similar amount of footprint with the same program. The building is one story and the form follows the site slope by stepping down a long rectangular geometry and 4 wings that are attached to it. Each wing also sits on the slope and connects 3 staggered floors by a continuous accessible ramp. The whole building has access to the daylight from the roof or sloped roof and an integrated shading system provides thermal and visual comfort for users inside the spaces.

daylight analysis

One of the most important finding in the current building is the lack of daylight access. Since the gigantic slab covers the first floor all along the floor plan and there is almost no opening in the roof, the Radiance daylight analysis showed a very low daylight factor in all spaces except the perimeter along the west facade and entry axis with skylight on top. (Top graphs + photos) 
To tackle this issue, the new proposal is included a single-story construction with a glazed roof that is controlling direct solar penetration with an integrated shading system. (Bottom graphs)

energy analysis

The combination of EnergyPlus and Open Studio was used for simulating the annual energy consumption and the comparison between the current construction and the proposed design. The comparison shows 43% saving just for cooling and heating energy in the new proposal. Adding the lighting energy reduction, the final energy savings would be more than 50%.
‍
The most fascinating part of this research is the huge cooling energy reduction which is shown with blue line in chart. Although the whole roof is covered by glass, the spaces wouldn't get hot due to a specific design used to determine the combination of the blades on the roof which provides a full shading pattern during summer and enable solar penetration during winter in form of a passive system which was patented at the time this project was presented.