Team: Satomi Angelika Murayama (Fritsch) (ME), Hazelynn Khoo (ME), Meijun Liu (CEE)

Advisor: Hayden Taylor (ME)

Today, public schools in tropical countries such as Singapore do not have typical cooling and dehumidification systems, like AC, installed in classrooms. The Berkeley Breathing Facade team is tackling this issue with a new way to cool down the space with minimal energy cost. This semester, we are building a model that can be used to make implementation decisions using Matlab, as well as the team’s expertise in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and materials science to calculate the levelized cost of comfort.

A 2012 study by the Association for Learning Environments found that academic performance is directly correlated with classroom comfort.

Breathing Façades Are The Solution

• Low-cost, energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly heat exchanger systems for cooling, dehumidification, and ventilation
• Materials: Recycled plastics, water, photovoltaics

Calculating Power:

Building on existing Matlab code for comfort , the team was able to model the amount of power required to run the entire Breathing Façade system of a single school.

Financial Model:

Building on existing Matlab code for comfort , the team was able to model the amount of power required to run the entire Breathing Façade system of a single school.

Calculating LCOC:

Creation of a numerical model to determine a value which has never been defined before: levelized cost of comfort (LCOC).

Next Step: Generation of a Graphical User Interface (GUI):

Interactive tool to help our stakeholders decide whether to implement the Breathing Façades technology.