KVA’s Hot Desk design is a functional prototype that integrates radiant hydronic heating in a no-waste modular masstimber construction. KVA’s design strategy is adaptable to built-in or modular furniture, building structure orcladding panels made from cross laminated timber (CLT) ‘blanks’, mass plywoodpanels and other engineered wood products where the density of laminated woodprovides a carbon zero thermal mass sufficient to distribute radiant heat. TheHot Desk was launched at the 2024 Canadian Hydronics Conference with industrypartner Heatlink and the Canadian Institute of Plumbing & Heating.
The Hot Desk is part of KVA’s ongoing design research workwith radiant heating manufactures that explores the intersection of furnitureand energy efficient building infrastructure. Hydronic radiant heating withclean electric or geothermal heatpumps offers a renewable low carbon way toprovide heating and cooling that is comfortable, efficient and inherentlyarchitectural since it is surface based. Yet most current hydronic radiant systems require on-site installationof hydronic tubing within a poured concrete topping, a material andlabor-intensive process that is costly and often prohibitive for buildingdevelopers and owners.
The Hot Desk demonstrates an automated, prefabricated manufacturing approach that reduces on-site construction and enables efficient radiant hydronics that are adaptable to site configurations in new construction and adaptive reuse projects. The KVA team created CNC wood milling protocols that can equip mass timber manufacturers, housing developers and radiant hydronic systems providers, to customize hydronic tubing pathway patterns for any given thermal geometry. KVA’s Hot Desk furniture design approach to radiant hydronic heating means that low cost, high value ‘plug in’ systems can be provided for multi-family mass timber new construction, adaptive reuse and energy retrofithousing projects.
Date: 2024
Industry Collaborator: HeatLink Group Inc.
Design Team:
Katie Koskey, AIA
Nick Johnson, AIA
Haipeng Lin
Sheila Kennedy, FAIA