Every single year, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) hosts a competition, the LowDown Showdown Level of competition, inviting layout pros to remodel an existing composition into a more power-conserving, eco-welcoming version of alone. This year’s issue was the Houston Astrodome—now called NRG Stadium. Oft-described as the world’s “eighth wonder”—Houston’s Astrodome is a one particular-million-square-foot athletics arena finished in 1964 by Hermon Lloyd and W.B. Morgan, and the area Texas company Wilson, Morris, Crain and Anderson.
The competition’s successful layout repurposed the Astrodome as a multi-use location with a 500-home resort, botanical yard, and sports activities history museum. The profitable layout group features college, alumni, and a college student from the University of Houston. Heading the design and style was alumnus Alfonso E. Hernandez, he collaborated with Mili Kyropoulou, Emir Pekdemir, Kyleen Rockwell, Bai (Brianna) Shixue, Felipe Perez Villarreal, Rosa Martell, and Yiwei Huang. In 2013 AN and YKK AP hosted a style and design opposition for the architectural icon that rethought prospective upcoming utilizes. The initial area submission reimagined the constructing as a 13,000-house garage.
The Astrodome alone has a diameter of 710 feet, and a ground-to-ceiling top of 208 ft all contained in just a 9.5 acre footprint. It was the very first air-conditioned indoor stadium on match days, the air conditioning method used 6,600 tons of cooling capacity—rivaling that of a compact European city’s use.
The effort and hard work to make the Astrodome eco-helpful is in line with Houston’s first Climate Motion Program to make the metropolis carbon neutral by 2050 in accordance with the Paris Weather Agreement.
“Given the sizing of the existing building and its one of a kind location close to the NRG Stadium, the repurposing of the place serves the requirements of the area by encompassing a number of and assorted uses,” the crew said in its task description.
The structure crew proposes separating capabilities in the arena by east and west pursuing deep city examination. To Astrodome’s west is an urban, industrial context even though to the east, the arena edges the Houston Medical Center, a slew of household areas, and connections to rail lines. The structure workforce chose to develop a promenade that capabilities as the building’s grand entrance which doubles as self-shading and natural air flow. The arena’s sizable semi-out of doors areas perform as extra shading and thermal buffers. In complete, the vitality alternatives could slash the Astrodome’s carbon emissions by 12 %.
On the Astrodome’s to start with amount, the style team proposed retail, resourceful areas, eating places, and bars to generate round-the-clock foot targeted traffic. Levels two, 3, and four host the lodge parts while the major floor is residence to a recently proposed Museum of the Astrodome for exhibiting memorability and sports activities historical past ephemera. The arena’s central place is converted into an enclosed botanical garden intended to offer friends a multi-sensory experience.
A 20-foot thermal buffer all around the concourses cuts down the sunlight coming into the interiors. Through the setting up, the existing skylights ended up changed with a fritted ETFE (Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) a fluorine-centered plastic that authorized the framework to manage its form. As per the competition necessities, the winning submission considers setting up mechanical systems and carbon reduction. Natural ventilation is proposed for structure, in addition to other heating and cooling suggests these as a thermal labyrinth engineered to move outdoor air as a result of a concrete structure that can pre-amazing and pre-warmth air coming into the making. The profitable submission was also created to maintain in line with projected local weather change–induced temperature boosts. According to a task description from the layout workforce.
The 2nd place style and design conceived the stadium as an urban farm and education and learning center. It gets rid of the roof structure to unveil “elegant lamella structure” that will allow the composition to be open—ideal for farming.
More on the successful designs can be identified right here.
