> Link <
I stumbled across this when I was looking at the "inhabitat" website. It has an appealing slogan "design will save the world", and has a great deal of interesting and useful information. Almost every article on this website could be used as a Precedent Study for my project.
This particular article is written by Jill Fehrenbacher earlier this year. It basically goes on to talk in detail about what we already have all already learnt about BIM and the advantages of putting it into practise. Where it gets particularly interesting is where it outlines some major projects that have proven how successful BIM can be, including the Miami Science Museum.
"A great example of how BIM can help architects design greener buildings can be seen in the Miami Science Museum, which is currently being built down on the Miami waterfront as a beacon of 21st century sustainable design. As a dynamic cultural, educational and research science institution, MiaSci is focused on operating with the highest environmental standards, while contributing to creating a healthy regional economy and community. MiaSci has established a Sustainability Platform that aligns the organization’s mission, program and operations with the people, the planet, and prosperity. Creating a building that would reflect and create a space conducive to their mission was essential. Designed by Grimshaw Architects, MiaSci won a grant from the US Department of Energy in 2009 to incorporate BIM into the design process in order to explore different environmental issues during the design stage and to ultimately produce a greener building."
It then goes on to talk about how it has integrated all the natural resources to maximise the efficiency of the building.
Precedent Study 7: Solar Decathlon
> Link <
The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency.
The winning team produces a house that:
- Is affordable, attractive, and easy to live in
- Maintains comfortable and healthy indoor environmental conditions
- Supplies energy to household appliances for cooking, cleaning, and entertainment
- Provides adequate hot water
- Produces as much or more energy than it consumes.
This video is Team New Zealand's entry and shows how a house can operate simply through the power of the sun. This is what we need to be looking at. One of the key criteria's for the competition is affordability. We are often convinced that making something environmentally efficient is an expensive alternative, but this competition begs to differ.
Precedent Study 6: What The Government Is Doing
> Link <
What the government is doing about climate change is an ongoing debate used to sway political votes and to actually aim for a clean energy future. This article has been taken from the Australian Government's Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. If there was a single group that should be on the cutting edge of how we're going to approach a greener future, this is it. The opening statement of the article outlines how a greener future will reshape the Australian economy, provide greater certainty to drive innovation, and help avoid the increased costs associated with delayed action on climate change. It seems right from the start that we are already behind.
These strategies listed are how Australia plans to reduce its impact on the environment in the future.
Mitigation:
- Investing in clean energy
- Supporting bussiness to take action
- Supporting households to take action
Adaptation:
- Managing the risks for Australia
- Making informed decisions
- Helping Australia adapt
Global Solution:
- The Kyoto Protocol
The section that is most relevant to my project falls under mitigation, and more significantly, supporting business and households to take action. The article goes on to state that Australian households are responsible for about one fifth of Australia's carbon pollution. "Households and individuals have an important role to play in combating climate change. The Government is investing in helping Australian's change the way we act to help reduce carbon pollution." This is scheme known as REBS (renewable energy bonus scheme) which for the moment is only offering a rebate for households that use solar hot water systems or a heat pump system.
To me this seems to be barely skimming the surface. I seem to be reading the words "investing" and "clean energy future" over and over again, whilst the article is flooded with images such as this...
...showing vast green paddocks, wind turbines and solar panels. Does the Government really even have a solid plan? The Carbon Tax. This is the latest idea in which polluters will pay per tonne of carbon they release into the atmosphere. The idea is that if pollution-intensive processes make goods more expensive, companies will look to reduce their pollution footprint in order to lower their costs. However there is no mention of the Carbon Tax in this article.
With the population ever expanding, and these people needed homes to live in. If households make up one fifth of carbon pollution it seems logical that more should be done to makes these residents environmentally efficient than simply a solar heating rebate. In my option the article in my fifth precedent study outlines more effective ways to reduce ones carbon footprint that the Australian Governments official website.
Precedent Study 5: The Green City
> Link <
This book has been written by Nicholas Low, Brendan Gleeson, Ray Green and Darko Radović. It looks at sustainable homes and sustainable suburbs around the world. For this precedent study I want to focus primarily on a chapter called "The Green House". It looks at a house that was designed by Michael Mobbs, a Sydney Lawyer that specialised in environmental law. It all began with Mobbs wanting to create a home that was as independent as possible to Sydney's supply and disposal systems. His aims included, no rainwater leaving the property, no sewage to leave the property, all electricity and heating to be from solar panels and all water to be utilised from what falls on the roof.
He has a website where he offers advice on how to make your home more sustainable.
> Link <
The Green City goes on to take about the methods Mobbs used to maximise the efficiency of his home. He manages to do this without the use of many computerised systems, but simply through a culmination of technologies that are currently readily available. This raised the question... If it can already be done, why isn't it more common? Is it that an environmentally friendly home isn't as "convenient" for the occupants within? We all need electricity, but "The Green City" states that most of Australia's electricity is generated through coal-burning power stations, which emit prodigious amounts of greenhouse gases. Yet why is that we all still leave lights on when we go out, leave the tv on when no one is watching it. We are responsible for our own demise.
An underlying message that I took out of "The Green City" was that when one man takes responsibility for his environmental contributions, huge successes are achievable. Currently it is up to the human race to monitor their carbon footprint, and it seems that not very many people really care. If everyone thought like Michael Mobbs (including the building industry) then we would be heading in the right direction. Unfortunately this is not the case, and taking some of the decision making away from the human occupants seems to be one of the only answers.
Precedent Study 4: Responsive Architecture at Daniels
> Link <
RAD, Responsive Architecture at Daniels is a research unit housed at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. The research is premised on the notion that every building or landscape component can be equipped with computational power. Projects at RAD develop models for such digitally enhanced environments to better handle persistent and emerging challenges in the areas of healthcare, building technology and sustainability. The projects are set up for multi-disciplinary collaboration and for potential development in partnership with industry.
This division of the University of Toronto focuses all its efforts on emerging technologies within architecture. I was initially intrigued by this as it reminded me of our Architectural Computing degree here at UNSW. However the closer I looked, the more significant RAD became. Many of the projects they are currently working on are very similar to a large portion of grad projects students are undertaking this semester. They have an entire section dedicate to "Artificial Nature" which explores many of the environmental issues raised in my proposal, but they also have so much information that could be precedent studies for other students. Due to this I recommend everyone has a look at their website.
This image shows a structural truss that responds dynamically to loads. It reminded me of the parasite Matt Hunter is experimenting with.
Or this interactive wall and Ros Skinner's project.
There is heaps of great projects being developed by this division. It would have been great to know about this before our proposals as it could have provided great inspiration. In terms of my project, the "All Seeing House" looked at giving more control back to the architecture. In the All Seeing House, individual brick units are equipped with an array of the latest sensor technology, capable of detecting gamma radiation, ultra violet radiation, heat flux, moisture level, carbon dioxide levels, and many other physical phenomena.
These All Seeing Bricks mimic the compound eyes of insects, each facing a slightly different direction, thereby projecting the visual range of a dome onto a box. The All Seeing Bricks transmit the information to an interior surface of correlating RGB LEDs, producing an engineered transparency of the world outside far beyond the normal senses of human beings. The house is conceptualized as a scheme of three spaces: the ouside world, an interior void that allows the immersive, heightened experience of the outside, and the space between the two, where the residential programatic requirements are packed tightly with – if not relegated to the status of – the mechanical infrastructure of the house. Void tubes that connect sensor skin to cosmic display not only allow circulation and entry of natural light, but also express the omni-directional vision of the house.
This is merely one example of the huge amounts of work being produced by the Responsive Architecture at Daniels in Toronto.
Precedent Study 3: LUMENHAUS
> Link <
As a modern pavilion, Lumenhaus is an architectural space of distinction. Where most energy-conscious houses are closed with strategic openings to resist heat transfer, Lumenhaus has open, flowing spaces linking occupants to each other within the house and to nature outside. Inspired by the Farnsworth House by Mies Van Der Rohe, the north and south walls are all glass, maximizing the owner’s exposure to bright, natural daylight. The fully automated Eclipsis System, comprising independent sliding layers, permits a revolutionary design in a solar-powered house, while filtering light in beautiful, flowing patterns throughout the day.
I was really excited when I came across this project. It is along very similar lines to what I am proposing for my GradProj. Initially I was curious as to why so much development had gone into making a building "green" and not a lot had been done to stop occupants ruining these designs. Lumenhaus is almost entirely run by computers in order to maximise it efficiency. This video basically sums everything up...
It would be very interesting to complete an environmental analysis of this building without the automation after a period of time with occupants living within it, and compare it with the same statistics compiled whilst automated. This is what I aim to do in my project and at this early stage I think it is quite clear what will be the most efficient. If giving control back to the building was not seen to be a possible greener future, then this project would never have obtained the backing/support and sponsorship that it has.
If you follow their website to the design section and look at the technologies they have implemented you get a great insight into the inner workings of how it operates and makes decisions externally to the occupant. This has been a great source of information as to what is actually possible and where I can extend on what has already been done.
Lumenhaus is the 3rd solar house that has been designed by Virginia Tech as part of a research program which began in 2002. The project won the international solar decathlon competition in Madrid this year.
LUMEN - "The power of light"
HAUS - "Reference to the bauhaus movement"
Precedent Study 2: Encompass Sustainability
> Link <
Encompass Sustainability has been actively involved in the areas of Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability in Australia since 1996. During this time there has been a significant increase in demand for governments, business and the broader community to develop integrated sustainability frameworks. Working across government and industry, we integrate sustainability principles into practical solutions that address ways of adding value through environmental and social initiatives.
I stumbled across this company when I was looking for previous work that had taken total control away from the occupants and handed it back to the building. What I found was Encompass Sustainability, and specifically their opinion towards "occupants". They work with clients to maximise people performance within a building, while at the same time minimising the building's environmental footprint. They do this through a process of occupancy evaluation techniques which provide a means for evaluating occupant responses to changes in their environment. These evaluations are in the form of pre and post occupancy tests. These evaluations provide qualitative and quantitative information about the occupant's reactions to their work spaces and the physical conditions of the building to which they are responding.
Encompass Sustainability have recognised that to be truly green we must look at the occupants of a building. Examining a building before and after it is filled with humans will produce greatly different results. The section of their website where they outline their thinking for the future shows us that humans need to act with foresight rather than react in hindsight. We must create spaces that allow people to nourish the environment rather than deplete it of its resources. Almost everything that Encompass Sustainability outline can be perfectly utilised with my project. They aim to educate occupants, which is definitely necessary, but they could have reduced the amount of steps in the process by allowing the building to perform some of the necessary tasks on its own. In an ideal world it would make sense for every human that occupies a building to automatically react in sustainable and ecologically friendly ways, but as successful as this company may be, this can never be achieved. We don't compensate for "human error" for nothing. By reducing the amount of room for human error we have also eliminated the need to find a solution for it.
Precedent Study 1: Egypt's Solar SLIDES House
> Link <
A team of architecture and engineering students have devised a way to harness Egypt’s strong solar rays and combine them with an innovative design. The SLIDES house (which stands for sustainable, livable and interactive design) is the American University in Cairo’s entry for 2012’s European Solar Decathlon. The home is designed to maximize solar power efficiency and sustainability.
Since Egypt is a country known for not only its hot sun, but its long tradition of architecture, the students wanted to design a modernized home that echoed architecture traditions of the past. The students compare the structural design to a matchbox, with a double-layered façade of interlocking perforated pieces, cast in a sand hue with yellow infusions.
The latticework perforations are an Arabic architectural trait, but also work to control solar gain and create shade. The panels can slide to adjust the levels of sun that is let into the house, and also echo the interlocking stones of Ancient Egyptian construction. Each side of the house can be slid out, allowing the inner matchbox structure to emerge.
When closed, the home maintains a passive cooling system. Since temperatures reach well into the 100s in summer months in Cairo, a ceiling vent helps hot air escape. In winter, the second screen of the building’s skin is opened to absorb heat, which is stored in thermal mass flooring. Slides is entirely powered by the sun, with a roof clad in solar thermal panels and photovoltaic cells. Combined, it becomes a net-zero energy structure, providing enough power to maintain a much needed cooling system for the desert area.
In my research I came across this concept known as "Slides". It is a step in the direction of giving some form of control back to the architecture in order to reduce its environmental impact and increase its efficiency. It is hoping to be approved by next June with an estimated cost of $1.1 million to bring it to fruition. Although this concept is still sun controlled and not spatially occupant orientated like my proposal it falls closer to the direction that my client wishes to proceed.
