Think of it as a big
thermal flywheel. Any "normal" heat exchanger has certain performance characteristics related to inlet and outlet conditions for both fluids.
The aluminum mass acts as a "
thermal flywheel" and ensures accurate temperature control of the fluid to prevent degradation.
Conversely, it keeps indoor temps cooler during hot days, acting as a
thermal flywheel, evening out temperature fluctuations in either direction.
Round the classrooms is a concrete frame with brick infill walls, which act as mechanical anchors in tropical gales, and to some extent both as
thermal flywheel and sound insulation.
Thermal flywheel effects are exploited to the full.
Cooling and heating are largely catered for by storey-height air ducts that run behind the long hall and under the home base wings from a heat pump that uses the mass of the granite of the hill as a
thermal flywheel. Daylighting is maximized throughout.
Quite a small reservoirof sodium sulphate can act as
thermal flywheel for a sizable building.
With the
thermal flywheel effect of the massive masonry walls and the recessed windows, the chimneys ensure that running costs (measured after occupation) are forty per cent lower than those of buildings of similar type and use.
Exposed concrete in foyer and atrium allows the structure to act as a
thermal flywheel and, in summer, night air is induced up the atrium to cool the mass.
In between, it passes through the slats of the ceilings so that the mass of the concrete structure can act as
thermal flywheel.
As well as all this ingenuity, the house is green, with the roof acting as a thermal collector, and the heavy concrete floor as a
thermal flywheel. 'So', say the architects, 'we can realize a house in which one can enjoy darkness and the beauty of shadow'.
The red buildings are massively constructed to exploit the
thermal flywheel effect.