Cavity Walls
When a building isn't designed to properly dissipate heat, the internal environment inside a house can cause discomfort— especially during nighttime. This is primarily tied to the thermal conductivity of building materials and how heat transfers work between different environments (ie outside and inside your house).
For instance, a dense red clay brick, which is the most commonly used masonry material in Cambodia, has a fairly high value of thermal conductivity due to its denser molecules. Thus, a brick wall of a building (that is exposed to the scorching sun all day) acts as a heat wall by trapping and storing excess heat during the day.
At night, however, as the outdoor temperature starts to drop, then that stored heat that’s trapped inside the brick needs to dissipate to a much cooler environment— particularly the living space of your home. This natural heat transfer can sometimes even cause the interior of your house to have a higher temperature than the outdoor environment!
This background knowledge has led the Kambujaya team to decisively incorporate the “cavity wall" technique into our Kambujaya Residences design – where there's an air gap in between 2 separate brick linings that make up our double brick walls. Technically, this construction approach helps us facilitate better heat flow throughout the building's structure while minimizing the heat impact on the interior environment. This ensures not only a more comfortable natural environment for residents (after sundown) but also helps minimize energy usage tied to cooling equipment like air cons, fans, etc.
Air Gap
The expansiveness of the glass skylight provides for plentiful natural light to seep into the interior, but can also trap an uncomfortable amount of heat due to its enormous exposed surface area of laminated glass to the sun. To counter this, the architecture called for a clever design solution that facilitates natural air flow directly beneath the glass surface. Open air gaps (covered with mosquito netting) sit between the connection of the skylight structure and front/back tiled roofs. Thus, allowing for a sufficient amount of air to pass through for a passive cooling effect while keeping bugs/insects out. This natural cross ventilation technique gives our residents an added benefit of efficient energy cost savings (as they don't have to rely too much on mechanical means for cooling).
