Design Life-Cycle

 The Life Cycle of the Edge

In recent years, the global warming greenhouse effect has become more and more serious. Due to climate change, an aging population and the birth of ethnic minorities, and the rapid development of technology, the emergence of intelligent networks, cloud platforms and the Internet of Things, the government has encountered problems. Many policies, such as smart cities, circular economy, smart green buildings and sustainable communities. From integrated recycling facilities to sensor-operated lights, most offices today are working to reduce their carbon footprint.

However, there is a building that leads to environmental sustainability: the edge of Amsterdam. Edge is the result of close collaboration between OVG Real Estate and Deloitte, the main tenant of the building. Edge has the highest sustainability score in the history of BREEAM: 98.36%. The building's work on sustainable development and smart building technology has won numerous awards from The Edge and OVG Real Estate. 95% of the materials used have a responsible and proven source. All timber in The Edge is FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified.

The building's atrium is 15 stories high. It is both an office and exterior window, and a social center for the entire building, while reducing the size of the environment. The client is an aggressive developer in the Netherlands who is committed to architectural innovation and needs to design an office building that sets benchmarks for sustainability, technology, workplace design, structure and exterior engineering. The most important thing is to create an inspiring business environment. It is also a smart office building that can be considered independently. The building's façade is approximately 13,000 square meters of glass. Different shapes and sizes of glass are arranged in a row of solid aluminum panels. The north-facing atrium facade includes 70% glass, allowing the interior space to benefit from indirect sunlight without overheating. The offices are located in U-shaped blocks on the east, south and west sides of the building to maximize the use of these spaces. The east- and west-facing facades are balanced by 45% glass and 55% concrete to provide heat. The south-facing facade is 40% glass, but the concrete at this elevation has been covered by photovoltaic panels.

Since it was first manufactured around 500 BC, glass has been a fascinating material for humans. Initially, glass was thought to have magical properties, but it has come a long way. It is one of the most versatile and oldest materials in the construction industry. Glass is a material that is widely used today. The versatility of this material has been rapidly developed. It is currently used as insulation materials, structural components, exterior glass materials and coating materials in buildings around the world. Although it is more expensive than other building materials, it cannot be denied that glass has become increasingly popular in construction, and its role in construction has continued to develop over the years.

The main component of glass is quartz sand. Quartz sandstone is consolidated detrital rock. The content of quartz debris is over 95%. It comes from various magmatic rocks, sedimentary rocks and metamorphic rocks. Mica and clay minerals, the manufacturing process of which is a crystal formed by quartz sand combined with other chemical raw materials after being fired at high temperature (1300 degrees Celsius) and cooled. Has a long history. At present, glass manufacturing technology is advancing rapidly, and its uses are increasing day by day. Clocks, utensils, doors and windows, lighting, and high technology such as electronic components and space technology are indispensable for glass. Our most daily contact is "flat glass", which is thick for doors and windows, and thin for clocks and medical tests. The manufacturing method is to use the glass slurry in the melting furnace by horizontal or traction method (also known as float method). ) And made by vertical traction. The dissolving slurry is also systematically cooled after being drawn out of the melting furnace. After the cooling is completed, it becomes "flat glass". The thickness of the flat glass is mainly determined by the speed during traction. The faster the traction speed, the thinner the thickness can be manufactured. . Although the ordinary flat glass looks bright and transparent from the front, it is slightly cyan from the side near the edge, because the color of the glass depends on the purity of the quartz glass and the iron content.

And glass is a resource-efficient, fully recyclable material that can be recycled over and over again. It is made from abundant natural raw materials such as sand and glass waste (broken glass).

This is especially true for glass bottles with average recoveries ranging from 50% to 80%. Thanks to the recycling of glass, you can save a lot of raw materials and protect natural resources. Because broken glass melts at a lower temperature than the raw material, glass recycling also helps save energy. Therefore, the melting process requires less energy.

In other glass industries, although each industry has its own characteristics and quality requirements, great efforts have been made to recycle glass after use. In the glass industry, the amount of solid waste produced by the glass industry during the production process is extremely low, because almost all glass waste (broken glass) is immediately recycled and returned to the furnace as a raw material.

Glass is basically a translucent material that is produced by heating sand. It can be easily molded into any shape, making it one of the most widely used materials in architecture and one of the most commonly used materials. Using glass in a building not only allows you to connect visually to the outside world, but also allows natural light to enter even if the house is closed. Unlike any other material, glass can withstand the effects of water, wind, sunlight, and other environments without losing an inch of its appearance and integrity. Glass can be recycled 100%, that is, it will not degrade during the recycling process, and it can even be used as a raw material for the construction industry. In addition, the use of glass as a building material highlights the beauty and elegance of the building. It has a smooth and shiny surface, making it an ideal material for showrooms and showcases.

And The Edge is not just ordinary architectural glass, but a glass more suitable as a building material: double glazing. The trend of modern architecture is to use large-area glass or even glass walls, but the advantages of single-pane glass in lighting and gorgeousness cannot hide its fatal weaknesses in heating and cooling energy consumption. Double-layer hollow laminated glass is the solution to this — Contradictory approaches. We know that there are three forms of heat transfer in physics: convection, conduction, and radiation. Hot air rises, cold air falls, and the temperature becomes uniform through circulating flow. This transfer process is heat convection. Put one end of the metal spoon in the hot water, and the other end that exposes the hot water will also heat up. This is heat conduction. Objects have the ability to emit energy due to their own temperature, which is called thermal radiation. For example, the heat of the sun is transmitted to the earth in the form of thermal radiation.

We often feel the phenomenon of heat conduction in our daily life. The heat transfer of ordinary buildings is mainly carried out through doors and windows. Sunlight enters the room through the glass window, and the room temperature will rise, and the cold air in the air-conditioned room will be blown out through the door gap. The principle of double glass energy saving is as follows: two pieces of glass are embedded in the frame, and the gap is filled with non-toxic gases such as air or argon. Because the molecular density of the air layer is much smaller than the molecular density of glass, there is no direct contact between the inner and outer glass. When the glass and air molecules form an energy transport, the energy transported is discounted by the air layer, plus the double glass gap The inner surface is coated with a layer of anti-radiation film, which can effectively block heat radiation. Therefore, the double-glazed windows greatly block the heat transfer. In summer, it can prevent outdoor heat from entering the room. In winter, it can prevent indoor heat from overflowing outside, making the building warm in winter and cool in summer. The so-called insulating glass is two or more layers of flat glass. The aluminum frame filled with desiccant is bonded with butyl wave and polysulfide glue. There is also the use of vacuum or argon in the cavity, not just dry air. The great advantage of insulating glass is energy saving and environmental protection. The energy consumption of modern buildings is mainly air conditioning and lighting. The former accounts for 55% and the latter accounts for 23%. Glass is a thin, heat-transmitting material in the building's exterior wall. The double-layer hollow laminated glass has good temperature insulation performance because the desiccant in the aluminum frame keeps the air in the glass cavity dry for a long time through the gap above the frame. It is also highly soundproof. In addition, when the indoor and outdoor temperature difference is too large, the traditional single-layer glass will frost. Insulating glass, because the inner glass in contact with the indoor air is affected by the air barrier, even if the outer contact temperature is very low, it will not frost on the glass surface due to temperature differences. The wind pressure strength of insulating glass is 15 times that of traditional single glass. Also in the building, architects not only use large areas of glass for their energy-saving properties, but also because they provide natural light to the building, which improves the living and working conditions of the occupants. Studies have shown that glass in buildings can contribute to people's well-being and health through all these benefits.

The use phase of a building is the stage with the greatest environmental impact during the life cycle of the building, so more attention needs to be paid in the field of building energy conservation and emission reduction. At the demolition and disposal stage of a building, the contribution of the recycling and recycling of building materials to reduce environmental impact cannot be ignored. Glass has a recoverable rate of over 60%, so choosing glass as the raw material for The Edge is a very wise choice.

BIBLIOGRAPHY：

1. “Bloomberg”,https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-the-edge-the-worlds-greenest-building/ , Accessed 25 October,2019.

2. “The Edge”, http://www.plparchitecture.com/the-edge.html, Accessed 25 October,2019.

3. “Build Up”,  “The Edge: Amsterdam office building with highest BREEAM score to date”,09Febuary.2017,https://www.buildup.eu/en/practices/cases/edge-amsterdam-office-building-highest-breeam-score-date, Accessed 25 October,2019.

4. “LifeGate”, “The Edge in Amsterdam. The most sustainable office building in the world”, 28 March,2018.https://www.lifegate.com/people/lifestyle/the-edge-amsterdam-most-sustainable-building Accessed 25 October 2019.

5. “Architectural Record RSS”, “The Edge”, 18 October, 2016. https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/11804-the-edge Accessed 25 October 2019

6. “Deloitte Russia”, “GR15: The edge of tomorrow: Deloitte CIS: About Deloitte”, 04 February 2016. https://www2.deloitte.com/ru/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/gx-the-edge-of-tomorrow.html Accessed 25 October, 2019.

7. “Urban Land Magazine”, “The Edge: Setting a New Standard for Smart and Sustainable Offices in Amsterdam”, 01 August 2016. https://urbanland.uli.org/sustainability/edge-setting-new-standard-smart-sustainable-offices-amsterdam/ Accessed 25, 2019.

8. “Meta.og:site_name”, “Edge Technologies: The Edge” https://edge.tech/portfolio/the-edge Accessed 25, 2019.

9. “Meta.og:site_name”, “Edge Technologies: The Edge” https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/smart-building-amsterdam-the-edge-sustainability/ Accessed 25 October, 2019.

“CBRE”, “The Edge”https://www.cbre.com/about/media-center/the-edge Accessed 25 October, 2019

The Life Cycle of The Edge in Amsterdam

            The Edge, located in Amsterdam, is officially certified the greenest office building in the 21st century. With all the techniques using in the building, architects are trying to make it less energy consumption, which it does and makes the material and energy usage of the building sustainable and efficient. It is also the most connected or smartest office space in the world while employees can set up their own working space via a smartphone app. In the ways of energy-neutral constructions, using sustainable devices and recycle systems to storage energy, and limitations of energy waste, energy saving life cycle becomes one of the most significant characteristics helping the Edge succeeds in its sustainability and intelligence.

            About the Edge, it is a 40,000-meter squares office building in the Zuidas business district in Amsterdam completed in 2014. It was designed for the global financial firm and main tenant, Deloitte. The purpose of building the Edge was gathering Deloitte’s employees collaborating in one place instead of separating in the city. Creating such an intelligent office brings Deloitte into digital modern age. Also, because of using high technologies in the building, the Edge reaches such a high level of sustainability. “We were in a bit of a competition to see if we could make the most sustainable building in the world,” says Coen van Oostrom, CEO of OVG Real Estate, the building’s developer. To break the record (measured by BREEAM, a U.K. rating system similar to LEED in the U.S.), they needed so-called “innovation credits” for attempting something new, far beyond things like the usual solar panels and rainwater harvesting.” (Peters, 2015) To determine if a building is sustainable or not, the first thing we should look into is how its construction helps getting energy.

The materials used in the construction of the Edge consists of 40 percent of glass, and the rest are solar panels. The unique design and orientation of the Edge is based on the path of the sun, and the setups of the facade are various depends on different environment situation. It has 65,000 square feet solar panels on the roof and on the south-facing wall that enough to power the electricity for the whole building. And those are not only the parts of the appearance but also helping gathering energy from the sun. With the gathered solar energy as the primary energy, the Edge can not only power the building itself but can also power electric cars, computers and smartphones mainly used by its employees, which significantly reduces the power consumption compares to traditional buildings. On the south, east and west, there are load bearing walls having openable panels for air circulation. Because of the transparency of glass, heat can be accumulated during shiny days. In a natural way, those small openable panels allow air flood in the building and release heat while panels are open. Mentioning the transparency, the Edge has the atrium area where employees can enjoy the natural lighting since the façade is totally transparent which allows natural light comes in. “Daylight pours into the 15-storey north-facing glass atrium, while solar panels on the southern wall and the roof convert sunlight into energy. The building also uses energy  from solar panels located nearby at the University of Amsterdam. Water for heating and cooling is piped to and from an aquifer beneath the building.” (Hutt,2017) Personally speaking, it is such a smart technique on saving energy because basically during shiny days, users in the building tend to less turn on the lights while solar panels storing energy which will cover the usage of lighting during rainy or cloudy days. When dealing with rainy days, the Edge does not waste a single chance to collect energy from the recycling. By collecting rainwater on the roof, the Edge use those water to flush toilet and irrigate garden greens. Although recycling rainwater has been commonly used in most buildings, it is hard to maintain and process such a recycle, and yet the Edge dose a great job on that which contributes saving a lot of water usage in the building. Besides the things that can be viewed at the appearance, the unseen construction also does great function on providing energy, which is the thermal energy storage. Employees are kept warm by two enormous bore holes tunneling more than four hundred feet down beneath the Edge. During the summer, the Edge pumps warm water deep into the aquifer where it is kept and use it to warm the building during winter.

All the features above were basically made for maximizing comfort and productivity of users during the process of architecture design.  And these helps constructing the exterior design of the Edge both from aesthetic and functioning, switching to the interior, there are more interesting and intelligent energy distribution designs that contribute to the sustainability of the Edge.

            The biggest feature of the Edge of energy distribution is the lighting system by Philips, It plays as a significant role in the sustainability of the building. “Deloitte’s data analysis department was already looking into how people within an organization work. This knowledge was the inspiration to design an office that would also be extremely sustainable in its use. According to van der Spek: “We got together with Philips, which had designed a lighting panel using the low-voltage Ethernet, which was much more energy efficient than traditional lighting systems. We decided to use this innovative technology and take it one step further. We added extra sensors in these ceiling panels for temperature control and movement detection. This generates data on the use of the building, which, for example, we share with the cleaners so they can adjust their intensity of cleaning to the intensity of use.”” ( Reimerink ,2016) In conclusion of what van der Spek mentions about the Philip lighting system that the LED lights panels developed by Philips specifically for the Edge are actually powered by low voltage ethernet cables, which means every light in the building become its own internet connected data hub with sensors that makes the building and employee smarter. It maximizes the energy use while providing lighting and internet at the same time. “This is the one of the first buildings in the world to use a connected lighting system, where more than 6,000 LED fixtures—each with its own IP address and every second luminaire equipped with sensors—link to user smartphones through visible light technology and connect to the building’s IT network via Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) switches. The system senses daylight, ambient temperature, CO2 levels, occupancy, and motion. In addition to potential energy savings, this technology provides data that improve building efficiency and management.” (Metz ,2016) With this kind of lighting and network system, employees can customize their working environment individually through smartphone Apps, which means there is no fixed spots for employees to stay in every working day since they can work at any workspace in the building by changing it into their preference environment( temperate, brightness, and etc), officers call this concept- “hot decking”. Besides, one interesting and useful function on the app that it will track and remind employees how many energy they have been used throughout the day in order to raise their awareness of being sustainable.  “Modern office buildings have to offer far more than a desk to work – improve employee’s productivity, minimize the environmental impact and not least to become a visible symbol of the company and its culture. In the digital age, the nature of work is also much more flexible, decentralized” (Future of Construction, 2017) The way that Philips lighting system delivering energy brings the sustainability and intelligence of the Edge to another high level.

            Moreover, the Edge perfectly succeed in the use and maintenance of energy. As I mentioned previously, “thermal energy storage – two 129 meters deep wells reach down to an aquifer, allowing thermal energy differentials to be stored deep underground; energy reuse – The atrium acts as a buffer between the workspace and the external environment. Excess ventilation air from the offices is used again to air condition the atrium space. The air is then ventilated back out through the top of the atrium where it passes through a heat exchanger to make use of any warmth.

; rainwater reuse – Rain water is collected on the roof and used to flush toilets, and irrigate the green terraces in the atrium and other garden areas surrounding the building”(BREEAM). The ways that the Edge gathering energy from the nature are smart and sustainable as well as the ways of storing those energy, which brings big benefits to most sections of the buildings, for example, the atrium. “Due to its optimal orientation, the building hardly needs any heating or cooling. When needed, additional heating and cooling are provided by a system combining solar energy and thermal storage of water at a depth of 427 feet (130 m). Warm water is stored there in summer to provide heating in winter and vice versa. Fresh air is “leaked” into the atrium to provide cooling in summer. The heated air is caught in the top of the building and its energy is used to cool the air again.” ( Reimerink ,2016) Energy storage system significantly helps the air circulation where it can be controlled manually or automatically. When it comes to energy recycling, it is pretty much the same as energy re-use from the nature, two main categories are solar energy and water. Recycling the renewable natural resources increase the sustainability of the energy consumption.    “It knows where you live. It knows what car you drive. It knows who you’re meeting with today and how much sugar you take in your coffee. This is the Edge, and it’s quite possibly the smartest office space ever constructed.” (Bloomberg) The Edge is ahead of its time, this unique building utilizes a combination of environmental and technological innovations to create a truly revolutionary business ecosystem, not only good for the users but also good for the environment. In intelligent and sustainable ways of materials constructions, energy distribution and maintenance, the Edge become the most innovative and sustainable office in the world.

Bibliographic

1. “BREEAM”, https://www.breeam.com/case-studies/offices/the-edge-amsterdam/

2. “Bloomberg”, https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-the-edge-the-worlds-greenest-building/

3. Tracy Metz,”The Next Wave: A smart building raises the bar for technology, innovation, and sustainability.”,

https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/11804-the-edge

4.              Rosamond Hutt, “Is this the world’s greenest, smartest office building?”,

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/smart-building-amsterdam-the-edge-sustainability/

5.              Jane Wakefield, “Tomorrow's buildings: Is world's greenest office smart?” 

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35746647

6.              “Schneider Electric”

https://www.se.com/us/en/work/campaign/life-is-on/case-study/the-edge.jsp

7.              “Philip”, https://www.lighting.philips.com/main/cases/cases/office/edge

8.              Letty Reimerink, “The Edge: Setting a New Standard for Smart and Sustainable Offices in Amsterdam”. https://urbanland.uli.org/sustainability/edge-setting-new-standard-smart-sustainable-offices-amsterdam/

9.              “SIG Handling”

https://www.sigairhandling.nl/en/project/the-edge

10.           “EDGE Technologies” , https://edge.tech/portfolio/the-edge

11.           “Future of Construction” https://futureofconstruction.org/case/the-edge/

12.           “International Water Association” https://iwa-network.org/city/amsterdam/

13.           ADELE PETERS, “This Frighteningly Smart Office Building Knows Exactly What You Want, When You Want It”

https://www.fastcompany.com/3052129/this-frighteningly-smart-office-building-knows-exactly-what-you-want-when-you-want-it