Evaluación térmica y lumínica en prototipos de cubiertas ligeras, para clima cálido húmedo

The zinc sheet roof is one of the most popular elements in Latin American architecture, and in many other regions with warm humid climates. Creating lighting and thermal alternatives focused on this typology would imply major benefits in the environmental and social fields. This study carried out in Manabí, Ecuador, evaluates three prototypes of light roofs, combining zinc with PVC, in order to determine the correct configuration of translucent material to create environments that are within thermal and lighting parameters. The results indicate that the empirical solutions model has the lowest variation in indoor temperature, with 32.63%, unlike the 32.97% of the cross-type model, and the 34.40% of the side strip model. Additionally, it was seen that the greatest influence of solar radiation on the roof is recorded from 1:00 p.m. to 2 p.m. approximately

Principles of obtaining light permeable conglomerate materials based on wood filler

Recently, the world has seen a demand for transparent or translucent concrete, capable of performing both, structural functions and decorative - design tasks. Such concrete use opens up new opportunities for the creative searches of designers, allows inclusion of new materials in those elements of decorating the internal and external of buildings, structures, large and small architectural forms. The research results on obtaining a new translucent material in the form of wood concrete (arbolite), which makes it possible to introduce previously unused wood processing waste of low-value wood species - birch and aspen into the technological process are presented in the article. The primary results open up new possibilities for light-conducting concretes at significantly low economic costs of their production. The results allows us to conclude about the complexity and ambiguity of wood bleaching processes and the need to strictly follow optimal formulations, modes and compositions at all stages of production.

Le pan de verre scientifique: Le Corbusier and the Saint-Gobain glass laboratory experiments (1931–32)

As to the isothermicity of the translucent walls, experimental laboratories will be able in the near future to give us a new translucent material whose isothermal properties will be equal to that of the thickest wall. From then on, we will witness the inauguration of a new era: buildings will be altogether hermetically closed. Windows will no longer be needed on the façade; consequently neither dust nor flies nor mosquitoes will enter the houses; nor will noise.Le Corbusier's fascination with light and glass formed a continuing thread throughout his career. After his maxim ‘architecture is lighted floors’ came the passionate discourses to defend the building's openness, first with his fenêtre en longueur, the ribbon window, and ultimately with his emblematic pan de verre, the glass wall that would not only provide sunlight-flooded interiors but would also most significantly contribute to shape the Modernist imagery. Despite the profuse explorations invested in this concept, Le Corbusier would always lament his failure to execute his ‘pan de verre 100%’ in the way he would have desired: ‘as a mur neutralisant constituted by a double glass-wall with an internal cavity through which conditioned air would circulate, hot in winter, cold in summer’.The idea of the mur neutralisant was born as part of a challenging environmental theory for buildings, termed either respiration exacte or air exact [1], proposed by Le Corbusier in collaboration with his cousin and practice partner Pierre Jeanneret in 1928. Le Corbusier would describe this theory in two of his most dogmatic publications: first, as one of his lectures (5 October 1929) collected in Précisions (1930) and, second, as part of La Ville Radieuse (1935), his manifesto on modern habitation.