At the beginning of last year ECA attended a wind tunnel testing workshop at RWDI offices in Milton Keynes. We spent the day with RWDI specialists whom had made a physical model of our building. The scheme was tested for possible negative impacts upon the comfortable wind levels around our site in both the winter and summer months. RWDI had built a physical to-scale model of our design and the surrounding context to which, they put into a wind tunnel testing area to understand how the flow of the air moves round the building. This was done by strategically placing sensors around the model and blowing air through it using smoke which visually helped to see the new pathways that were created with the positioning of our designed building.
This was a great opportunity for ECA to better understand the effects that our building design would have on the natural movement of air within and surrounding our site. Working closely with the wind tunnel specialists we were able to eliminate areas where the testing equipment picked up unsafe levels of wind accelerating round the building to the pathways alongside our design. This testing indicated where it might be best to place vegetation and or canopies near areas considered to be overly windy compromising the comfort level of a person walking past.
This is not to mention the delight in seeing the design worked up in a physical model with context.
