C o m p u t a t i o n a l S i m u l a t i o n
245
COMPUTATIONAL SIMULATION OF VENTILATION AND HEAT
TRANSFER AT “GLASS HOUSE”
Patricia R C Drach
Program of Post-Graduate Studies in Urbanism, School of Architecture and Urbanism,
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
, Brazil,
Abstract
The continuous process of urban transformation, as well as the changes which took
place in built environments themselves interfered in the ventilation dynamic. Considering
that natural ventilation is a climatic factor, a renewable alternative, as well as an
important source of comfort, it seems relevant to consider its great potential, in terms of
economic and environmental gains, when applied to architecture. In this work the aim is
to study the ventilation and heat transfer inside “Glass House” located in the
neighbourhood of Morumbi, São Paulo city, in Brazil. With the thin structure and
transparent large room, “Glass House” was one of the first houses built in Morumbi, it
was constructed on a plot of 7.000 m
2
, and gradually became embraced by the local
vegetation. Today this external area is a small protected reserve and full of rare plant
species. “Glass House” was built in 1951, by the architect Achillina Bo, otherwise known
as Lina Bo Bardi, who moved from Italy to Brazil in 1947. Among her works, the São
Paulo Museum of Art, MASP, built in 1958, is considered her masterpiece. But “Glass
House” was listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1987 and today holds the Lina Bo
and Pietro Maria Bardi Institute, founded in 1990, wherein can be found part of the
private art collection acquired over the years by the Bardi couple. The computational
simulation involves the air circulation and heat transfer problems developed for two
different external scenarios.
Keywords:
Computational simulation, Brazilian architecture, Lina Bo Bardi, Glass house.
Introduction
The Rome-born architect Achillina Bo, otherwise known the Lina Bo Bardi, arrived in
Brazil after World War II. She studied at the School of Architecture at the University of
Rome during the 1930s. While still in Italy, but now in city of Milan, she received certain
recognition for her work, and had her own Studio, which was soon destroyed by bombing
in 1943. After that, she participated as a member of the Italian Communist Party's
resistance to German occupation. At the end of the War, she created, at Bruno Zevi
side, a weekly publication called "Cultura della Vita" (Culture of Life).
In 1946, Lina Bo married Pietro Maria Bardi, who received an invitation to found and
direct an art museum in Brazil, where she could redevelop her professional career. An
architectural project of Lina would later house the São Paulo Museum of Art, MASP, the
most important museum in Latin America, built in 1958. Among her works this is
considered her masterpiece. Besides her work in architecture, Lina has been involved
with work for furniture design, fine arts, theatre, stage design and cinema, among others
things.
The dynamic nature of her training and her personal experiences associated with her
creativity and willingness to approach the culture and ways of life, as pointed out by
Oliveira (Oliveira 2009), resulted in architecture capable of appreciating simplicity,
spontaneity, the residual and the ephemeral. An "architecture understood as 'an
