Portfolio

The Green School is a pioneer in environmental education, and an environmental leader for our future. It's a place where kids learn about sustainability through environmental stewardship, community engagement, and hands-on activities. Climetric has been involved in the creation of this beautiful, sustainable school campus. We assisted with passive design strategies and low-energy comfort systems, from concept design to the buildings being in use. Ensuring a natural, comfortable environment for the students.

A wedding venue located in a glass house can be a challenge for comfort engineers but through detailed study of many scenarios Climetric has managed to come up with a sustainable, natural, and low-energy plan to ensure comfort all year round. The strategy for the glass house is so that the doors can be opened as much as possible. For when it gets too hot, there are ways to cool it down. This includes floor cooling, displacement with and natural extraction, comfort blinds and external solar shading.

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We provided sustainable design input for the retrofit of a residential building in Kwadijk. By our input, overinsulating was prevented and natural strategies such as solar shading and stack ventilation were implemented. Resulting in cheaper construction costs and a lower annual energy bill.

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Tentech is an innovative structural engineering firm specializing in lightweight structures. We assisted them with their design for their new office by creating a comfortable and efficient space that suited their design. We helped with insulation, thermal mass, and the innovative comfort system that uses cost-effective, common household systems like heat recovery for ventilation, and underfloor heating.

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The Hazendal Car Pavilion is a museum that houses vintage Rolls Royces. The space is covered in glass walls so that you can see the cars on display from all angles. We used our parametric engineering process to develop a sustainable design with solar shading and only natural cooling via earth tubes. Our involvement included a Climetric parametric analysis, earth tube system engineering, and detailed solar analysis. The end result is a clean and naturally conditioned museum hall.

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Chips is a unique workplace and we were thrilled about the opportunity to ensure their new office was as great as they hoped. Using our Climetric process, we made some design changes that helped to make the building more environmentally friendly.

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The building has a beautiful view of Table Mountain, and by using our process, the large, glazed facade with the view could be maintained. We were able to turn a single-glazing facade into an energy-efficient, comfortable facade by installing heat extraction and comfort blinds.

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Photo by Paris Brummer.  https://www.parisbrummer.com/ 

We were excited to work with ORIO Architects on the new house for Antoon and Mia. Antoon and Mia wanted something a little more different and were interested in using a SKB-block building material. SKB-blocks are not used very often in the Netherlands and are common in Germany. We've tested the SKB-Blocks in Climetric Parametric process and found that they have a very good comfort performance. We optimize their passive design for a comfortable experience, and after that, helped them to select the most suitable system by doing detailed annual analyses. The result is a simpler system, saving money in the short and long term.

We helped Gabana Architects create a sustainable urban master plan for a mix-use project precinct in Gaborone and an industrial precinct in Lobatse. We helped the Gaborone team bring their aspirations of creating a truly sustainable urban developments to life. Our sustainability involvement ranges from a high-level global overview masterplan to our specialty, parametric Climetric Analysis. As such, we have created a design and sustainability compliance tool for the precinct - specific for all typologies and many design variations.

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The design by Jasper Knoop features a shaping double-story-oriented, fully-glazed facade overlooking the property. Using our parametric Climetric design process, we have reduced the number of days to be warm from 121 to 36 days. And the days that it would be hot from 21 to 5 days. All of this without using any cooling. By using detailed analysis, we could use the stratification of hot air in the room by combining the room height with a separate hot air extract fan, which significantly improves thermal comfort. We were able to make your building BENG-compliant with a generic heat pump, without utilizing tight seals. By doing so, we left the client a lot of room to choose the right system for his needs.

An eco-friendly luxury home in Hout Bay; clever design with our thorough input. Our design support helped to design the house to be eco-friendly, warm in winter, and comfortable in summer. We provided a lot of our sustainable services - climetric parametric analysis, wind analysis, solar analysis, detailing for shading performances, detail thermal performance calculations and other things. The house is designed to be sustainable with features like exterior shading, optimised insulation and glazing specs. Ceiling fans, and TABS for thermal comfort. It also has PV panels that are optimised to fit the building's needs and a rainwater harvesting system.

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Sustainable living is so much more than just saving energy. It's about innovation, creativity, and comfort. Shaping Matters liveable design for Rick and Miriam showcases this nicely. Rick created an innovative way to keep the building comfortable, which is embedded in the core of the building's design. Thanks to our detailed engineering and modelling, we were able to support the systems development process by testing the feasibility of the system. This system is incredibly promising--it's an inexpensive way to create a working system that matches the efficiency of an TABS system with a groundsource heatpump. We are now in the details-engineering stage for Rick and Miriam's project.

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The design of this house by Alex van Haasteren is tuned to the client's desires. Our Climetric parametric analysis focused on the climate, investment, and running costs. During the summer, sunlight is reflected from external screens and pergolas, and the rooms are cooled by the ground heat exchanger. This, combined with extra thermal mass, insulation, and a hot air extract, make glazed Tuinkamer very comfortable. Resulting in a tailored design specifically to the clients needs; a comfortable house where they can enjoy total peace of mind while saving energy.

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KHM Architects has been providing design services to one of the top-ranking universities in South Africa for which they leveraged our advanced data-driven design techniques for the retrofit of Stellenbosch University's civils building. Using our Climetric parametric analysis, we identified potential trouble spots and provided insight into how various design approaches would affect the comfort experience, giving KHM Architects valuable information to help them make well-informed design decisions for their design.

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Our contribution to the perfect retirement living. We did an in-depth analysis of two Evergreen resort houses to ensure they are comfortable and energy-efficient. This resulted in the inclusion of underfloor heating and cooling and optimised glazing and insulation specifications, which enabled a comfortable living space. We also included "earth tubes" for cooling in the bedrooms - The earth tubes were engineered so they could be installed even when the building structure was already completed.

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An home designed to combine nature and serenity with perfect comfort. The clients wished to achieve a comfortable building that connected with its surroundings, the Reeuwijkse Plassen—a magnificent wetland area with a natural beauty and peacefulness. The natural light permeates the interior due to a continuous glazing facade of the building, with special consideration given to shading and ventilation strategies that complement the buildings architectural design and create a comfortable and welcoming environment.

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Dynamic heating simulations provide a detailed understanding that helps the implementation of innovation. The sustainable housing project Meerendeel will use an innovative, greener heating system that leverages a large underground thermal buffer. The engineers of this system needed a detailed understanding of the heating requirements and usage patterns of the buildings. We provided this insight using our simulations, which take into account local weather, giving the engineers a much better understanding of how their innovative system will need to perform throughout the year.

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Vera and Ko took up the challenge to rebuild the remains of an old farmhouse into a sustainable haven! Rather than using the default heat pump approach, we were able to help Vera and Ko with their heating and cooling needs in a more sustainable way. We made sure that Vera and Ko will stay warm all year round by modeling their desired future version of the farmhouse and using the output to design the natural systems that will heat the farmhouse.

Investing in the long term quality and comfort was a key consideration for this residential project.  Climetric tested over a 1000 different designs for thermal and financial performance.  The resuls were then workshopped with the client, to smartly invest in strategies that would add real value to their experience of their house.

OpenCover specializes in airhalls; inflatable sport buildings. Permanent airhalls are becoming increasingly popular. And if the heating costs can be reduced and the summer comfort can be improved, , this would be a very successful development. That is why we assist OpenCover with their airhall innovation. We assisted OpenCover in their process by analyzing the airhall performance, determining which innovative insulation material to use, and working through the specifics of earth tubes and heating systems. The airhall industry is a competitive with tight prices, which makes it difficult to innovate; especially when clients are approaching you for a cheap building solution. Whilst this makes it hard to be innovative, we are admiring Hank for taking the initiative and we are grateful for the opportunity to be a part of his journey.

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Team Academy is a business school that, at the beginning of the COVID-days, was considering what measures it could take to be able to keep providing offline education. We assisted Team Acedemy by providing them basic principles of ventilation that would impact their operations, a system concept design input for a healthier classrooms and a quick scan of their building. Our input is used in the development of their offline education strategy.

In the days before air conditioning and central heating, passive design meant that people should design buildings to take advantage of what's available naturally. We were glad to be involved with one such building- the historic homestead on the hazendal wine farm. The design team was excited about using multiple sustainable heating and cooling strategies, but our analysis ultimately showed that the historic building would provide occupants with comfortable temperatures with minimal interventions. As a result, we only looked at small insulation thickness optimization for a more recent extension. We love seeing when buildings are designed for energy efficiency.

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ZuckermanSachs asked us to help make their design for a gorgeous modern luxury villa more sustainable. The client wanted their villa to be both energy-efficient and luxurious. The building is perched on a steep slope with lots of windows providing an amazing view of the ocean. This design is more efficient and sustainable due to a 'plateau by plateau' earthtube system, optimised insulation, and structural heating/cooling. Detailed glazing specifications with heat extracting blinds make the most of natural light while keeping the heat out.

With W/E Consultants, we explored an alternative way to check a building's compliance with the daylight code by simulating daylight conditions for a building. The Dutch building code states that all buildings must be compliant with daylighting standards by checking the table in NEN2057, but as buildings become more complex, it becomes difficult for architects and engineers to check compliance. The building code allows simulations, but requires a specific process that deviates from standard daylight metrics. For W/E we set up this process. It is quick and easy to use, allowing us to quickly validate the compliance of buildings with courtyards.

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We're still working on this one.  Please visit later for more information!

Although our involvement was limited, we only validated the excellent performance of the design, it was exciting to be involved in such a special design. It which features rammed earth walls, moon-phase harvested timber, an integrated greenhouse, and earth tubes. It's always great to work with Wolf! Wolf&wolf architects work on designs that are sustainable in every way, they have always been an exemplar of quality and sustainability in the South African architecture industry.

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Often, old buildings are considered to require extensive and expensive work on insulation, heating, and glazing. But for a monumental building in Vlissingen, we provided a full analysis that showed that it could be upgraded in a more straightforward and cost-effective way than expected. With our input, we were able to exclude many costly upgrades that were not needed. Wall insulation could be rationalised and focussed where needed, and there was no need for triple glazing or extensive external shading. Furthermore, we helped with engineering details for their system, so it will utilise the building's ground temperatures and meet comfort requirements.