Designed to beat the Texas heat
New building in Conroe offers ‘cool’ features
The new Promenade Place building in Conroe sits in a growing commercial area, a white building with a scalloped exterior and tall architectural fins placed around it like towering linear sculptures.
There’s nothing cookie-cutter about this $2.4 million, 14,000square-foot building, recently finished and ready to take on small-business tenants.
Its architects, Rachely Rotem and Phu Hoang of New Yorkbased MODU, were just as concerned about energy efficiency and managing summer heat as they were about designing a great-looking building for their client, Houston-based Anh Gip, a hairdresser who began flipping houses and has now developed her first mixed-use commercial building.
As Texas swelters through its hottest month and with temperatures this week expected to top 100 degrees every day with barely a drop of rain, it’s worth noting that one brand-new building will serve as a test to a new technique designed to stand up to our relentless heat.
In addition to being miserable to live with, soaring temperatures have already affected cotton and corn production, and ranchers are watching the effects on livestock. Trees, some struggling after two winter freezes, aren’t getting enough rain since much of South and Central Texas fall into the “abnormally dry” to “exceptional drought” categories, according to drought.gov.
Rotem and Hoang see architecture as problem-solving, and their task here was to find solutions for dealing with the Texas climate. They have developed a building exterior that uses corrugated concrete — the width, depth and repetition of the curves devised to repel heat — to cool buildings and reduce reliance on air conditioning. While this building’s exterior is made of poured concrete, the same could be accomplished with precast panels, they said.
Back before air conditioning was common, architects placed structures on land to capture the prevailing winds. Doors and windows were lined up to take advantage of those breezes and to minimize hotter southern and western exposures. Air conditioning changed all of that, and many homes and other structures are placed on lots simply to give the best curb appeal.
“We are creating harm to the
environment with our social dependence on machines,” Rotem said of air conditioners. “We need to work on cooling air before it gets to the building.
Hoang said they tested flatpanel walls against corrugated walls, and the temperature difference was up to 18 degrees. The corrugated exterior was the big winner, and each pattern is unique to different locations and climate, he said.
They also paint the exteriors white, a color that better reflects the sun’s rays, keeping the surface and what’s inside the building cooler. (A survey shows that white or light color cars get up to 2 percent better fuel economy than black or dark cars.)
“It’s simple, but once you understand the impact of a flat panel versus a corrugated panel, it’s shocking that it actually works. And it works around the world,” Rotem said.
Promenade Place has 24 architectural fins, ranging from 12 inches to 4 or 5 feet wide, and they’re each placed in specific spots to help keep the sun out of the buildings.
It’s a unique trick for a commercial building, but not something homeowners would want in their yards. Hoang and Rotem instead recommend other vertical treatments, from tall trellises with flowering vines to shady trees that keep the sun out of a house, keeping it cooler and more energy efficient.
Southern exposures, on the other hand, need horizontal shading, so pergolas, covered patios or awnings can serve as buffers to block the sun.
Rotem and Hoang also included pocket gardens that enhance curb appeal and provide shade, too. Tall bamboo sits in one corner near a bench, and climbing jasmine is just starting to grow on a metal grid placed at the base of some of the architectural fins.
The architects sing the praises of native plant species, urging clients to choose plants that should thrive here, then watch to see which ones survive summer heat and drought or the occasional winter freeze. There’s nothing wrong with choosing beautiful plants with fragrant flowers as long as they’re hardy, too.
“We want the environment to be productive and beneficial but also great experiences for people, so we think about the outdoor aesthetic. They also become part of the site’s identity,” Rotem said, noting that a building’s beauty can be part of its sustainability.
If it’s a nice place, customers want to come back and owners want to take better care of it, she said.