June’s soaring temperatures were a useful reminder for anyone working in building design that overheating in buildings is an issue we must urgently address. Increasingly airtight and highly insulated urban homes are particularly prone, with excess glazing meaning mechanical ventilation is required to keep buildings comfortable in summer.
Overheating is just one of the issues we can tackle at MACH Energy. We are now applying our technical and creative expertise to analyse a building’s performance holistically, using modelling to understand how a range of scenarios affect both the form and function of a building. Using this data, we can optimise the design and identify the ‘sweet spot’ where a building’s level of comfort (heat, light, noise) is balanced against its energy use and construction cost.
For this holistic approach, we use our dynamic building physics modelling software to calculate how ventilation, thermal comfort, daylighting and acoustics all interact. In the case of overheating, we look beyond the design of the building’s envelope/façade to see how adjustments to its orientation, u values, glazing and shading would enhance the design.
Find more information through https://www.machgroup.co.uk/explore, or get in touch regarding your project or organise a CPD by emailing info@mach-energy.com
Charity Efforts – T-Rex Marathon
On a more human scale overheating is a familiar experience for one of our team, Chris Jones. Chris is presently training to run the 2018 London Marathon wearing an inflatable 7 ft. T-Rex costume, to raise money for the Evelina Children’s Hospital in London, which has supported his 6 year old cousin James through his life-changing illness and operations for the past four years.
Ze Nunes, MACH Acoustics’ founder, has promised to match any money raised in July for the appeal and will also contribute £5 for each comment received on this newsletter, so please support Chris via the links on the left and follow the training antics until the big day!
