The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has once again named a team of students from the Faculty of Engineering (FT) of Universitas Indonesia (UI) as the 1st Place Winner in the Setty Family Foundation Net Zero Energy Design category at the ASHRAE Design Competition 2024 which was announced on August 1, 2024, in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Six FTUI students who are members of the Archine team managed to outperform 163 other teams with their green building design which they named Bromeliad Library. For three consecutive years, UI students have always brought home victory from this event.
The Archine team consists of six Mechanical Engineering and Architecture students from the 2020 batch, namely Muflikh Kas Yudamaulana, Miguel Bintang Samuel Silitonga, Alfian Febrianto, Alya Widha Aurellia, Bimantyo Ganggas Fadhil Ihsani, and Risma Fitriyanti. Supervised by Dr. Miktha Farid Alkadri, Dr.-Ing., Ir. Ova Candra Dewi, Ardiyansyah, S.T., M.Eng., Ph.D., and Dr. Eng. Arnas Lubis, this project highlights the concept of a building that can reduce CO2 emissions and meet net-zero emissions standards.
To achieve this goal, this building combines passive and active strategies in its design. The intended passive strategies include optimizing natural light, reducing solar heat, and an innovative clay facade to control humidity. On the other hand, the active strategy in the building focuses on air quality, efficient water management, and energy-efficient lighting.
“We designed the orientation of the Bromeliad Library to face 356° to the north, allowing natural light penetration while avoiding direct sunlight on important areas such as book collections. Then, 61% of the building’s landscape area is allocated for green space, one of which is by utilizing native plants, such as Bromeliad and Jacaranda which help reduce the effects of heat and increase CO2 absorption,” said Muflikh, as the team leader.
Biman, one of the team members, added that Bromeliad Library is equipped with several superior features such as LED sunlight sensors and a Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) system with Heat Recovery (HR), as well as the use of the roof area for vegetated terraces and solar photovoltaic panels. The building also has a Water and Fog Harvesting system that can collect rainwater and dew up to 3.3 million liters per year.
With the implementation of these strategies and technologies, the use of Energy Usage Intensity (EUI) in the building has been significantly reduced from 211 kWh/m² to 87 kWh/m², reducing energy consumption by 59%. This reduction can be achieved through improvements to the facade (12.11%), window glass (1.69%), advanced lighting and control (9.25%), high-efficiency HVAC system (35.45%), and PV solar panels (44.31%).
Acting Dean of FTUI, Prof. Ir. Mahmud Sudibandriyo, MSc., Ph.D., said, “This year, the FTUI student team again won first place in the 2024 ASHRAE Design Competition. Two years earlier, the FTUI team also won third place in 2023 and first place in 2022 in the same category. The success of the Archine UI team is a clear example of our students’ ability to present innovative and sustainable building solutions, in line with ASHRAE’s vision to create a sustainable future for the earth.”
ASHRAE is an organization with more than 50,000 members spread across more than 132 countries, committed to advancing the science of Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning (HVAC), and Refrigeration. The 2024 ASHRAE Design Competition focuses on the design of a new central public library in the heart of São Paulo, Brazil. This competition has 3 categories, namely HVAC Design Calculations, HVAC System Selection, and Setty Family Foundation Net Zero Energy Design Projects. The Archine Team will next receive their award at the ASHRAE 2025 Winter Conference in Orlando, Florida, in February 2025. At the conference, the team will also have the opportunity to present their innovative Bromeliad Library design to the international community.
