The Minnaert building of the University of Utrecht is without a doubt one of most striking buildings that have been realised in the past years in Holland. The Minnaert building includes spaces for practical classes and lectures, a restaurant and workspaces for several study-departments.
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The most striking part of the building is however the enormous central hall on the second floor that is occupied for a large part by a shallow water basin. Normally traffic-areas and construction use a third of the (gross) surface of similar public buildings. If in a design more than a third of the gross floor space consists of alleys and hallways then it isn't considered economically profitable. In this design a large central space was possible because of the highly efficient arrangements of other parts of the building. While conserving the wanted (net) functional floor space, the programmatic 'left-over space' (tare) is concentrated in an attractive meeting area. The water basin in this area will also be used as a large climate machine.
Because the central hall is being considered as a large plain it is only minimally heated while the rain water basin serves as a cooling machine. There are drains in the roof of the building that collect water in the basin. Besides water, these drains also allow daylight and air to enter the hall. After purification in a pebble-tank the rain water is used for flushing the toilets but also serves as a buffer storage for the surplus warmth that is released in the practical- and computer halls.
The strict Dutch isolation regulations created the paradoxical situation that even in our moderate climate hardly any energy is needed for the heating of buildings, but energy wasting cooling installations are needed for the removal of the heat coming from humans, computers, lighting, etc. in these elaborately isolated buildings. In the Minnaert building this heat is stored in the water basin to be emitted to the cold outside air during the night, thus reducing the amount of energy used for cooling.
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