Cathedral of Christ the Light
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Interior Diurnal Temperatures of the Cathedral of Christ the Light. The analysis helped understand thermal comfort within the glass building.
Geometry of Cathedral of Christ the Light rendered in Paraview.
The Cathedral of Christ the Light is located in Oakland, California. Built from wood and glass, the cathedral houses 1,400 people in a shape resembling the intersection of two circles. The walls are composed of overlapping panels of wood and glass rising skyward to form the vault. The design was completed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and Taylor Engineering completed the research required for the structure.
The analysis for this structure involved a prediction of solar loading as well as air circulation patterns throughout the structure. ThermoAnalytics used RadTherm software to determine the need for transmissive or non transmissive glass and predicted internal temperatures of the Cathedral on a sunny days at both half and maximum occupancy. This represents analysis of human comfort on a mass scale and can identify locations within the building that would likely reach uncomfortable conditions. ThermoAnalytics also set up a convection analysis using CFD to examine the different opportunities for air flow and recirculation.
This type of thermal analysis is performed as a service by the ThermoAnalytics Engineering Team and also by leading architectural firms. It enables engineers and architects to make better-informed decisions early in the design process, when changes or improvements have very little impact on project cost. Contact us to review your thermal modeling needs in detail.
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