Exhibit Hall's Natural Ventilation Design Not a Quick Study
To create the world’s most voluminous, naturally ventilated museum space for the California Academy of Sciences, the San Francisco office of project consulting engineer Arup commissioned wind-tunnel tests to confirm its computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models. Then it rebuilt its CFD model. The combined studies took 18 weeks, which is 16 weeks more than it would have taken to study a simple rectilinear space, says Karl Lyndon, Arup’s project mechanical engineer.
Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin Inc., Guelph, Ontario, constructed a 1:100 scale model to simulate air flow through entrances, the piazza and the roof. Instruments measured wind pressures exerted on the building, while sensors measured the speed of air moving through it. RWDI also built a smaller-scale model that included trees outside the building.