You can’t judge a book by its cover. Fair enough, these houses looked good. So why then does the final ranking not list them as first, second and third. The reason is Team Illinois and its second place finish. Illinois stood awkwardly on the winners podium between the popular kids of SD2009 and at just $250-450K the house was by far one of the cheapest in the competition. Amazing then that Illinois came in second place, just a scant 9 points behind second time champion Team Darmstadt. Kudos to Illinois for providing a sustainable house at such an affordable cost.

But there is more to the story. What Germany and Illinois have in common, besides extremely close scores, is Passive House! Yes both of the houses were designed to meet the Passive House standard. The German house was not certified but was built by the university where Passive House was pioneered. The University of Illinois is the stomping ground of the Passive House Institute US headed by Katrin Klingenberg who was a design consultant on the team.

So ignoring aesthetics for a moment. If you wanted to build a super efficient house, would you not choose Passive House? – The building standard winner of the last two Solar Decathlons? And would you not try to make the house as affordable as possible? Given that an added $400K might only get you a slightly more efficient home? It is at least worth considering…

In my opinoin, Illinois used the Solar Decathlon to show a cost effective method of achieving energy efficiency and deserves more credit for doing so. Take notice because I suspect we will see the development of a number of affordable Passive House projects in the coming years.

Two Passive Houses have won an eco-homes design competition for a sustainable development at “The Works Ebbw Vale” in Wales. The two entries, one three-bedroom and one two-bedroom house, use up to 85% less energy, emit 80% less carbon dioxide, use the sun as the primary heating source, and have excellent indoor air quality. The designs, by bere:architects of London (three bedroom) and HLM Architects of Cardiff (two bedroom), also share a commitment to regional sustainability by using locally sourced materials and products such as sheep’s wool insulation, wood pellets for biomass energy, a wildflower meadow roof, dry stacked regional stone walls, larch wood cladding, and products made by Welsh companies such as innovative cement and paper insulation. This is a great example of how Passive House can be adapted to meet regional and cultural aesthetic criteria while still providing an affordable strategy for producing ultra efficient homes.

“Using local craftsmanship, supply and materials and leading edge environmental analysis and design tools we have created a truly vernacular house reflecting the heritage of both Wales and Ebbw Vale. By applying the principles of passive design with cutting edge environmental design tools, we have designed a low energy building at affordable cost.” – Jonathan Jones, HLM Architects Regional Director

The competition houses, sponsored by the Welsh Assembly Government and Blaenau Gwent Country Borough Council in association with the Building Research Establishment (BRE), are to serve as the nucleus of a ‘Future Houses’ exhibition at the master planned redevelopment of the Ebbw Vale steel yard in Blaenau Gwent. Furthermore, the masterplan for Ebbe Vale includes a ‘Learning Campus, a Local General Hospital, a Leisure Center, Sport Pitches (playing fields), a Theater, and high quality office space all surrounded by 500 environmentally friendly homes which includes the two new Passive Houses. A strong connection to the local environment is also an essential concept of the development. As for the two Passive Houses, construction is scheduled to begin sometime in January of 2010.

Interestingly, the requirements for the eco-homes included meeting both the German PassivHaus low carbon building standard and the Welsh Code for Sustainable Homes(CSH) Level 5 which stipulate methods for waste disposal, use of local materials, water efficiency and use of renewable energy features. In winning the competition, the design teams were able to successfully integrate the two building standards and meet their strictest requirements. This issue of competing building standards often comes up when discussing Passive House because it is being transported globally. In the U.S. for instance, the major force for green building is LEED which has its own set of unique requirements not all in tandem with the Passive House standard. The danger, beyond complicating the design and implementation processes, is that the doubling of standards reduces the major benefit of the Passive House standard, namely that it delivers a building with excellent air quality, low carbon footprint, that uses very little energy at an affordable cost.

“The innovative measures for energy efficiency used in these designs can be replicated in building developments throughout Wales and should cost no more than a standard home when economies of scale are taken into consideration. The new technologies together with the use of local products manufactured from recycled materials, open up a range of business, training and job opportunities for local people which supports our sustainable agenda.” – Leighton Andrews, Local Deputy Minister for Regeneration

The design of the houses still shows variation in the application of Passive House. Both houses are timber framed, highly insulated, nearly airtight and have glazing optimized to admit solar radiation from the south. The two storey, three bedroom, bere:architects home (shown at the top of the post) includes a thick dry stacked stone wall base with larch clad siding on the upper floor. The house is topped in a wildflower meadow roof which ties the building to the landscape. “Evacuated glass tube solar panels provide 65% of the hot water throughout the year, which is supplemented by an energy efficient gas boiler. Electricity is supplemented by Photovoltaic panels, sheep’s wool is used for interior insulation while retractable external blinds provide shade in summer.” (taken from the official BRE press release) The two storey, two bedroom, HLM Architects house on the other hand uses ” [...] PV roof tiles to supplement electricity, hot water is provided by a wood pellet biomass boiler while rainwater is harvested for gardens and flushing toilets. Movement sensors control all fixed lighting. The HLM design also features dry stone walling and uses innovative local products ranging from cement replacement from Cenin in Bridgend to paper insulation from Excel Technology in the Rhymney Valley.” (taken from the official BRE press release)

It is worth noting that these Passive Houses, and the development at large, is an indicator of the emphasis Wales is putting on sustainability. I applaud the effort and look forward to seeing images of the completed houses.

“Wales has once again shown bold environmental leadership and it will reap the commercial and employment benefits that will undoubtedly come from creating the first Passivhaus skills base in the UK. I believe that Wales now has the opportunity to become the Passivhaus centre of the UK and our practice, bere architects, looks forward to helping with this.” (taken from the official BRE press release)

(This post was originally published on GetActiveGoPassive by Ziger/Snead Architects)

http://www.independencestation.com/index.shtml

The Artek Pavillion by Shigeru Ban was built in 2007 as part of an installation at the 2007 Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan. The mobile exhibition space was commissioned by Finnish furniture company, Artek, and forest industry group/paper producer/wood materials manufacturer, UPM. As part of their company philosophies, the two sponsors, beyond just asking noted architect Ban to design a swank pavilion, also added that the structure should highlight sustainability in form, function and materiality. The subsequent investigation led the team to review how recycled products could be applied in the design of the pavilion and resulted in a goal of using one primary material throughout the entire project. Steel, aluminum, and wood would all be suitable choices, but because of the relationship both Shigeru Ban and UPM have with wood and paper products, the material turned out to be an extruded wood plastic composite made primarily of recycled paper material, specifically recycled self-adhesive labels. In the end, it seems likely that it is the material palette which gives the project form and claim to sustainability.

Form, in the case of the pavilion, comes through a very limited kit of parts. The pieces include angles, floor ‘boards’, corrugated roof and corrugated wall panels. Out of this kit, Shigeru developed a two meter long by five meters wide by seven meters high ‘bay’ or ‘unit’ which could be repeated to generate the pavilion. A simple pitched roof ‘proto-house’ form was applied because it sheds water, does not require long spans, and helps to reduce the scale of the overall pavilion. The ‘unit’ includes one truss system made from bolted angles and has attached to it the wall, roof and flooring panels. In the final pavilion the bay was repeated 20 times which resulted in an overall structure length of 40 meters. The pavilion is open to the air on both ends and has a translucent corrugation at the center to admit natural light. No building systems are incorporated except for electricity and artificial lighting.

The entire pavilion, including materials, was produced and assembled in Finland. The structure was then deconstructed, boxed and shipped to Milan for the final show. The modular, kit of parts, design has allowed the pavilion to be assembled and deconstructed several times since it was first used. It was eventually auctioned at Sotheby’s for an undisclosed sum to a private buyer. Sustainability is therefore not only inherent in the materiality of the building, but also in the fact that it can be relocated and reused so easily. The only trace it leaves behind are twenty or so temporary footings placed along the length of the pavilion.

Fascinating to me is that the pavilion is sustainable from beginning to eventual end. Used self-adhesive labels are used as a main ingredient in the primary material. Those recycled labels generate a simple kit of parts that can be assembled and deconstructed to move or adapt the pavilion to multiple locations. The kit of parts in turn evokes a simple building form appropriate for many locations. Furthermore, no environmental systems are included which means the building has a very small environmental energy footprint. The pavilion can be adapted for a variety of events and functions which mean that its useful life can be extended over many. Finally the building can be entirely recycled back to raw materials.

Reflecting on this project, I am doubtful that many buildings out there can be made of one material wholly. In fact it is counterintuitive when considering natural balances that a sustainable approach uses only one material, but principles such as recyclability, deconstruction, and healthy materials can be applied to any project and should gain traction as the building industry refine’s chain of custody. The Artek Pavilion is a great example of how good design can leverage materials, form and function to create something better than the individual pieces.

For more information please visit Shigeru Ban’s website.

 

Blobwall is a material and form study by Greg Lynn (‘Form’) which explores the definition of modular construction and space separation in the coming century. Design and construction of Blobwall are heavily influenced by Lynn’s work with advanced three dimensional modeling and manufacturing techniques and follow an evolutionary path from his earlier work with biomorphic architectural forms. The wall is composed of identical, preformed, three lobed, hollow pieces of low-density plastic polymer of varying color, similar to the material comprising plastic playground equipment. The system is self supporting and can be stacked in a number of ways to create walls, arches and domes. Results illustrate how a repeating element could be combined to create an extraordinary organic structure. The astounding variability does, however, come at a high price in terms of time, labor, and manufacturing capability and hides a requirement for complete customization to achieve the organic results shown in Blobwall.

It is important to point out that I am no stranger to this situation because I oftentimes succumb to the ‘Curse of Customization’ in both virtual and real-world design problem solving.

For some perspective, inspiration for Blobwall emerged from Greg Lynn’s concept of creating a modular wall building product that could be easily assembled and would work like ‘bricks’ in traditional construction. I am inferring this, but it appears that he is challenging what we today consider the ‘unit’ of construction.

Units are a very important concept in construction. Their characteristics have defined building for thousands of years. Structural integrity, opacity, thermal properties, moisture resistance, durability, weight, availability, and size (among other factors) have been critical to the evolution and selection of building materials. Generally, materials easily handled by craftsmen and readily available were the most used. Minor inconveniences and flaws were overcome through small augmentations of the material such as painting or plastering. The small units are transportable and can be assembled by one laborer without need for mechanically powered equipment. The widespread use of masonry units bricks and stone is no surprise given their natural ingredients and usefulness. To reinterpret the ‘unit’ is a worthwhile exploration especially given the huge developments in digital design and manufacturing technology.

Possibly the most important characteristic of these units, in the context of Blobwall, is their ability to be stacked against each other in repeating patterns. It only takes a quick survey of an architectural history book, Google images, or the Brick in Architecture Awards to see the astounding number of possibilities for shape, form and texture using a repeating unit. All of these variations are created from bricks roughly the same size and shape, using friction, gravity or mortar to hold them together. Minimal cutting and sawing of the material is needed except for unique situation such as decorative elements or structural conditions.

The development of Blobwall, and the blob unit, is really important to understand for its implications on the future of the design and construction industry. FORM followed a process only possible in the age of digitized design and manufacture. (Let me note that the process did however begin as most projects do, with a hard working post-graduate student sanding and sculpting away at a large foam object, protective mask and all.) Through many iterations, using both digital and physical models, the now familiar three lobed blob unit was developed. To enable mass production, this proto-unit was cast and used to make a negative metal mold from which the subsequent ‘copies’ could be created.

Crucial to the project, was a material which could be modified to be the ‘unit’ of the 21st century. For this, Lynn found a plastic polymer that can take on any shape and is easily modified, cut, once formed into blobs. The polymer also has the unique characteristics of being translucent, light, and durable as well as available in a variety of colors. Interestingly, the material is made from recycled content and is fully recyclable into new products.

The process works like this. The metal negative mold of the original blob unit is filled with small plastic polymer pellets and heated. While the mold is heated it is also being rotated. The plastic pellets melt and adhere to the mold, the rotation ensures that the entire surface is covered in plastic. The mold is cooled and then removed leaving a hollow plastic blob unit! Repeat until you have the desired number of blob units.

The system is self supporting and can be stacked in a number of ways to create walls with S, L, and C shapes as well as many other possible configurations. Even self supported arches and domes can be built.

But therein lies the hidden portion of the process. The wall is really not constructed out of similar pre-manufactured units, stacked and ready to use. Instead, the blob units are a starting point. Designers actually use 3D software, like MAX or Maya, to design the full Blobwall. Once each individual blob unit is located within the structure a designer uses boolean functions to subtract any overlapping material between two blob units. Designers must choose which blob unit takes precedence and leave it whole.

The resulting shapes are sent to a 5-axis routing machine where software guides the machine in making precise cuts to the blob units. Each blob unit and sub blob unit part are labeled to indicate its location within the Blobwall. This part of the process was handled by Machineous which specializes in using 5 and 6 axis machining equipment in architectural applications. I suspect there were quite a few aborted attempts but the end product is brilliantly assembled.

My compliments to the design and construction teams. The final Blobwalls are beautiful, really. The observation I have about Blobwall is that there is an immense amount of customization built in to the process. In an age of mass customization this may be an entirely appropriate strategy and part of me wants to believe that this is the future of manufacturing. But the premise that the Blobwall can be assembled out of pre-manufactured parts is not true. Moreover the shape of the units themselves have no impact on the overall design of the wall. The same design could be done with squares, triangles, spheres. As long as the designers followed the same processes using booleaning, software design and 5-axis machining the results would largely be the same. Blobwall to me represents a production method, but one not based in the considerations of geometry or their resolution. The true promise of computational analysis to me is that a single shape could be generated for each job, mass produced and installed in the same way bricks are. That the blob unit becomes dominant and the final construct subservient to the means of production and erection. One unit, depending on its orientation and angle, could create any organic shape. One unit becomes the constant, the use becomes the variable.

For more information please visit Greg Lynn at the FORM website. Blobwall is available exclusively through Panelite.

Energy in = energy out. Only the format changes. Now that is sustainable.

greenPIX, ‘the Zero Energy Media Wall,’ uses architecture and technology to absorb, store, amplify, translate, and display data, both natural and manmade, in an organic system that responds dynamically to the local environment. Creative programming adds even more layers to the already rich stream of data being presented and allows passersby to experience the site in terms of space and time through both their own eyes or the minds of the selected artists. Media is displayed on a gigantic screen which uses 2,292 pixels of LED lights and translucent glass. The entire presentation comes with a zero net consuming energy footprint thanks to a glazing-integrated system of perforated photovoltaic cells and a battery storage system. The result is a public art installation that creates awareness of the local environment in both appearance and functionality; sustainability is more than facade deep for greenPIX.

The greenPIX project was designed by Brooklyn based Simone Giostra & Partners Architects in collaboration with ARUP for the Xicui Entertainment Complex in Beijing and is the largest LED display in the world. The project is also the first building facade integrated PV system in China. The building is located in western Beijing close to a number of 2008 Olympic venues. The singular design brief given to Giostra was to ‘enliven the building’s opaque, boxlike presence and connect it to its environs’ all using only one facade.

Media displayed on the large format low-res screen can be presented in both film and still image formats, with the consideration that artists must consider and plan for the implications of jumbo size and low resolution. To account for this, the designers developed a special software package (windows) to allow potential artists to test their creations on a virtual facade before loading it into the media wall. The software shows the facade presentation in a rudimentary 3D cityscape mockup and makes it possible to view the wall from many angles and distances to test the resolution.

In one example of potential media presentations, artists created an infrared heat map generated solely by locating all the occupants of the building and showing their position in relation to one another. The resulting animation is a dynamic representation of real-time events and begins to address the designer’s vision of the wall as a way of linking the building and its occupants to the environs.

The entire facade display is roughly 24,000 squaure feet. Each of the 2,292 glass panels comprising the facade has a color changing LED fixture mounted behind it and is a ‘pixel’ in the large format low-res display. Integrated photovoltaic cells mean that the panels both emit and absorb energy in the form of LED and sun light, thus reinforcing Giostra’s vision of ‘technological self sufficiency.’

‘Seascape’, the concept of dynamically changing scene based on both time and vantage point, also played a large role in the design of the facade. Media is the active dynamic element at night. During the daytime however, when sun obscures the LED light, Giostra had to make the passive elements of the facade appear dynamic. He accomplished this by varying opacity and mounting angle (5°) of the glass panels as well as by carefully arranging the integrated PV cells to form a dynamic pattern. The result is a facade that appears to undulate with the rhythm of the environment day and night.

Interestingly, the entire system is a total of seven feet thick including glass panels, structure, power and data infrastructure, LED lighting fixtures and a maintenance access space.

Below is a video interview of designer Simone Giostra discussing the greenPIX project.

For more information please visit the greenPIX website or read ID Magazine’s article on Simone Giostra titled “A Gleam in the Eye.”

Sustainability is a simple concept with a varied and challenging means of execution, and it is easy to falter, especially when faced with the myriad of devices, controls and systems designed to make buildings more sustainable. Searching for the latest, most sophisticated strategy for increasing a project’s sustainability does not translate into a sustainable building. The results of chasing technology can be increased budgets and memorable interviews, but in post occupancy building analysis designers may find that the added cost was suffered for only modest gain.

“Cover the basics first.” – Steve Lee, Sustainable Design Program Director, Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture

Occupants, maintenance personnel and building owners (and thrilled bloggers of course) are the ones most affected by any disparity between predicted and realized benefits. With significant complexity comes greater chance for failure. So how can designers avoid chasing technology? How can technology be used appropriately as one tool in the toolbox of a sustainable designer?

The answer, I propose, is to divide design strategies into two categories: passive and active; and to prioritize the passive strategies as fundamental in the design process. Start any design process by considering building location, orientation, envelope and program. Link these passive basics together with a strong concept. Then layer increasingly complex active strategies onto this sturdy sustainable foundation. Several wonderful examples of this philosophy have been built and one shining example is the SIEEB building for the Tsinghua University in Beijing.

The Sino-Italian Energy Efficient Building (SIEEB) was designed by Italian Architect Mario Cucinella, in collaboration with Milan Polytechnic, the Ministry for Environment and Territory of the Republic of Italy, and the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China. The project created a 20,000 sq. meter headquarters for an organization, the Sino-Italian Cooperation Program for Environmental Protection, dedicated to ‘education, training, and research with a focus on energy conservation and emissions reduction.’ The building is just over 40 meters tall, cost $32,000,000 and was completed in 2006.

Stated goals for the building were energy efficiency, low CO2 production, healthy indoor air, water recycling and reuse, resource savings in construction materials, minimization of environmental impact in construction and occupancy, intelligent control systems for occupants and maintenance, and durable materials.

It is important to note that an intensive integrated design process was adopted for the project. In fact the project was developed through a series of tests and computer simulations which helped define the optimal shape, orientation, envelope and systems appropriate for the building. These early conceptual building studies were allowed to influence the architects vision and clearly had a strong affect on the building shape and character.

Passive

The SIEEB is symmetrical (east-west) in plan. A thin building section created by adding a central courtyard minimizes the distance between an occupant and the exterior. Daylighting space becomes a much more viable strategy and dependence on artificial illumination can be reduced. The courtyard facades feature pivoting glazed louvers with a reflective coating that help regulate daylight and solar heat gain within the building. Multi-level terraces open to the south and expose the building to solar heat gain in the winter at shallow sun angles. The terraces also provide public space and area for vegetation. Shading these terraces are angled photovoltaic panels. East and west facades feature double glazing with integrated horizontal sunshades. This helps to mitigate the heat and light from the strong morning and evening sun. The north façade is opaque and insulated to prevent heat loss from the cold northern winds.

Location, orientation, envelope and program. The design team took a very complex design brief and boiled it, at least the concept, down to a few simple rules that might apply to almost any project. The design moves are passive because they deal with building fundamentals such as geometry, materiality, orientation, and program concepts and provide a base onto which more complex sustainable systems can be layered.

Active

The SIEEB is dynamic. Layered onto the passive aspects of the building are a set of very innovative, intelligent, controllable systems that help the building reach its high sustainability mandate. State of the art active solar photovoltaic elements are central to the building design. In total over 10,000 sq. meters of building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) help to shade the structure and produce operating energy for the project. These panels not only provide power but also shade for the building.

Electric generators driven by gas generators supply additional energy required to meet demand not met by the BIPV system. Due to the efficiency of the gas generators, and avoidance of grid power with ‘line loss,’ the supplementary electricity generation system produces significantly less CO2 than a similar conventional Chinese building. Leveraged onto this system is a heat recovery system. This system heats space in winter, heats water year round and helps cool the building in summer using an absorption chiller. An efficient displacement air system provides conditioned and ventilation air while ceiling integrated radiant panels help control temperature. A night flush system is used during summer months to provide cooling.

Dynamic also means that the SIEEB can respond to occupancy, use and time of day through the extensive use of sensors and override switches. Room temperature, lighting, and ventilation air are directly controlled by occupancy, temperature, light, and CO2 sensors. These sensors direct building systems to turn on and off on a ‘need’ basis which saves considerable energy. Controllability also means that occupants can tailor their space to suit their comfort range which means that maintenance staff gets fewer complaint calls.

The SIEEB is not a success because of the attractive ‘active’ building systems. Active systems do make the project stand out, but none of them are feasible if it were not for the ‘passive’ strategies used. The team began with a clear building mandate for performance. Onto that they added an integrated design process and a clear architectural vision aided, possibly derived from, the knowledge gained by an aggressive testing and simulation process. Passive fundamentals were designed directly into the project. Then, and only at the end, could ‘active’ systems be integrated into the design. The result speaks for itself.

For more information please visit Mario Cucinella Architects project website or the original post at Inhabitat.

What brings this motley crew of professions together is likely little more than an American fascination with watching the strange and the punishing. Medical interns get slammed with mad ours of work, complex social interactions, life and death all within a half hour episode so what is not to like. Now if Americans really want to watch someone get punished, live in poverty and whistle all the way down, television producers need look no further than a profession near to my heart: Architecture.

Soon to be a runaway hit… Architecture School

Architecture School, produced by Michael Selditch (he brought the world ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’), is a documentary series chronicling a year in the life of a class of Tulane University School of Architecture students building an affordable home in New Orleans. The series will air in six episodes and play on the Sundance Channel beginning in August. Selditch says that he had long been wanting to showcase architecture and that New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina gave him an opening.

“Katrina shed a spotlight on the city…. Nobody was paying attention to the plight of the metropolitan areas.”

Enter URBANbuild at the Tulane School of Architecture. The program was born out of the post-Katrina re-evaluation of Tulane University and its role in the community. Tulane has long been one of the largest employers in the city, but after Katrina the focus shifted to a model where the school’s curriculum and the local community could benefit from one another. Program director Byron Mouton notes that, “Hurricane Katrina is actually giving us a chance to deal with pre-Katrina situations.” Students in URBANbuild spend the fall semester designing their houses. Then, following a final critique, one house is chosen and built in the spring semester. The house is generally 1,200 sq. ft. and located in the city. The program is reminescent of Auburn University’s Rural Studio, but is of course geared toward the plight of urban victims of a natural disaster.

For the sustainability junkies, (I am guessing) the house showcased in the series is called GREENbuild. It is a green home built with some lofty but achievable sustainable goals. The stated mission is to “research, develop, and construct an inventive and experimental prototypical house” and do all of that with regard to the city, the economics of the neighborhood and the environment. Tune in this August for more information.

Disclaimer: I have a masters degree in architecture from the Tulane School of Architecture.

For more information please visit the URBANbuild, Tulane University, Tulane School of Architecture, or Sundance Channel website. Additional information can be found in the July/August 2008 Metropolis magazine.

The UMA Active House is a modern factory-built volumetric module unit house.  “Fixed price, fixed time, quality-guarantee, and modern design” are some of the attractive attributes of the house according to the design team.  The house is also unique because it is designed to be nested into communities which share parti-walls.  There are currently four models being sold in Austria.

The houses come in (S)mall, (M)edium, (L)arge, and (XL)xtra large.  Sizes range from 800 SF to 1830 SF and have anywhere from two to five bedrooms.  The houses build on basic module dimensions to assemble into larger versions.  The options all come with a parti-wall option that allows the houses to be chained together into a row house arrangement.  Additional buildings like garages are not advertised though a project was completed where parking is located under the houses.  The are two module types: center modules at 17’6” widths and side modules at 8’ widths.

The UMA Active House has very thorough construction.  A rigid steel frame holds the house together and infill is a combination of wood siding, two layers of OSB, two layers of insulation, a vapor barrier and an interior finish.  Because of the design and fabrication of the house modules the house achieves does not have a large energy demand even in the cold winter.  The house is heated using radiators and cooled with natural ventilation during the summer time.  High performance operable glazing is used to allow large open glass facades to bring light deep into the house.

Construction Process

The UMA Active House is built in a factory in Vienna and shipped to the site on trucks.  The house is broken up into volumetric modules with pre-installed materials and fixtures.  The site must be prepared before the house arrives.  The modules are then craned into position and assembled by licenced craftsmen.

What is fascinating to me is the level of craft found in the house. It appears from the literature as though the house has been engineered to be thermally and structurally sound. The diagrams above, showing the various wall assemblies, illustrate a rigorous development of the envelope. At the same time the house has a striking architectural style and innovates in the manner which the modules can be assembled. I for one would really like to see this type of rigor and inventiveness applied to the standard site built house. Depending on the design criteria, houses created in this fashion could have significantly better envelopes and as a result much smaller energy footprints.

For more information please visit the product site.

Downtown Provincetown, Massachusetts, has a new sustainable art center designed to promote the health of its occupants, art collection and the indoor and exterior environment. The 19,500 sf expansion of the existing Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) building “created new galleries, new storage areas, and an expanded museum school” and accomplished these programmatic goals while still meeting a sustainable mandate by the client. The successful integration of museum program and sustainable strategies has garnered the project significant attention including an Honorable Mention in the AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) 2007 Top Ten Green Projects Awards and a LEED NC Silver Certification.

Project designers, Machado-Silvetti Associates Architects, point out that “from the beginning of the project, the Museum (PAAM) clearly expressed its objectives.” PAAM, you see, has a mission of “sustain(ing) and nurture(ing) an artistic culture in the beautiful yet fragile ecology of Cape Cod through exhibitions, classes, public lectures and social events.” This program is not unique to museums but is noteworthy because of it’s emphasis on local factors. Whether it is a result of the location on Cape Cod or the mission of the organization itself, the work housed at PAAM is mostly local. This mission to work within their local community established a perfect ideological framework from which to plan their newest renovation. It also meant that sustainability of the environment, economy and community were paramount to the project and that these concerns would inform decisions made on the project.

Sustainable features of the project include:

• Parking for employees only (eight spaces)
• Bike racks and showers to encourage cycling to work
• Porous paving materials
• Rainwater storage tanks
• No irrigation landscaping
• Low-flow toilets and fixtures / waterless urinals
• Super insulated envelope
• Efficient furnaces
• Energy Recovery Ventilators (ERV)
• Extensive daylighting
• Low VOC / durable / renewable interior materials
• and a photovoltaic array

For more information on the PAAM project please visit:

• Provincetown Art Association and Museum
• Machado Silvetti Associates
• AIA COTE 2007 Awards

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(above) Unused material from the Boston Big Dig

What does 600,000 lbs of recycled materials look like? Pretty good actually.

The Big Dig House by Single Speed Design (SSD) is built with unused or recycled materials from the Boston Big Dig project. All in all, a total of 600,000 lbs of  steel, concrete forms, roadway sections, and lots of precast concrete left over from the central artery expansion was used to create the home. Costs of the recycled materials (free) helped offset transportation costs and extra design fees for the atypical installation and resulted in a house costing just $150 per square foot (not including land costs). Far from being cold, industrial or infrastructure-scaled, the final design is a warm, modern structure that only occasionally reveals the massive scale of it’s components.

The concept of using recycled and unused transportation materials was developed by the house’s owner, Paul Pedini. Pedini is himself a highway and transportation design engineer and therefore had an intimate knowledge of the basic structural components. He chose SSD Architects John Hong and Jinhee Park because he really liked the aesthetic of their office. He described their office as boxy, flat-roofed and contemporary looking, a look he wanted in his home.

”I wanted the beauty of industrial materials … I wanted high wide spaces, wide open to each other. I wanted to let the outside in, wanted a big entertainment space. We wouldn’t have to shorten the long steel sections we brought from the Artery.” – Pedini

The recycled materials were given to Pedini for free except that he had to pay for transportation of the heavy materials to the house site. Besides cleaning and repainting elements of the recycled pieces, materials in the house include concrete floors, cedar panels, zinc panels, large glazed openings and concrete block. The result is a house that has lots of daylight and affords views into the adjacent woods.

I have to add that this is a very unique interpretation of sustainability. By using the recycled material, the project recaptured the embodied cultural, material and cost energy of the material. This project is not ashamed of showing us the architectural implications of recycling on a large scale, and benefits from that effort.

For more information please visit the original article at Adaptive Reuse or the Single Speed Design website.

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All photos by Mikkel Strange

The Danish Smart House Eco is an environmentally friendly housing system which can be optimized in a number of ways to meet the space needs of both individuals and families. Creators Eva Kristine Borup and Stefan Valbaek of Valbaek Borup Architects, designed the system to be flexible to the needs of the occupants with regard to building orientation, number of floors, number of rooms and materials. Especially interesting is that the house is certified by the Danish Ecolabel Agency! (for more info visit Ecolabel)

The architects note:

“You can design your house precisely as you wish… small or large, two or three floors, with either your family at the center or your friends. The house can even be customized for the local environment.”

Important considerations by the designers were:

• Carbon footprint of the house
• Safety, health, and durability of materials used
• Record low heating costs for operating the house

For more information visit the Valbaek Borup Architects website or the original article at ByggExpo.

(above) Exterior views are available to all rooms

(below) High quality mahogany window wall and exterior ceramic facade

This week I had the good fortune to visit the Swedish Embassy (House of Sweden) in Washington DC. (No, I did not visit the DC IKEA…) What I found was a beautiful piece of modern architecture showing many of the traits people have come to expect from contemporary Scandinavian design. Powerful themes such as water, ice, forests, stone, the darkness of Nordic winter and the lightness of Arctic summer echo through the architectural form and material palette of the building. Combined throughout the interior and into the spatial experience, these primal elements reinforce the architects vision that the visitor is stepping into a cooler Nordic environment filled with glowing light, dark lakes and pristine forest.

House of Sweden architects, Tomas Hansen and Gert Wingardh of Wingardhs Architects, were given a very simple design brief. “Design a building that communicates the message that Swedish government and politics are characterized by transparency and openness.” The designers add that “We are proud to say that we have a transparent and open form of government in Sweden, and so we wanted the building to match this transparency by showing what goes on inside. We have tried to create a building that conveys something uniquely northern, like the low setting sun at dusk that creates a very reddish light. We wanted the building to glow with the same light.”

The concept of a Nordic Light is used repeatedly in the embassy. Most dramatically, the architects placed a cantilevering glass rectangle at the third level which is imprinted with computer generated images of wood veneer. (The original intent was to use real wood veneer, but due to the humid climate in Washington the designers were forced to improvise.)

“We decided to go for a computer-generated, exaggerated wooden veneer, which was printed on a film,” says Wingårdh. “This goes back to the great Swedish tradition of imitating wood and marble in what used to be a rather poor country.”

Elsewhere in the building glazed panels are screened with a gradient density dot matrix to create the effect of fog. These panels are used to illicit a sensation of descending through space in areas like the grand staircase to the exhibition halls and the exterior egress stair.

The wood veneer presented on the exterior of the building is again reinforced on the ceilings, walls and detailing of the interior. Lay-in maple veneered ceiling tiles with randomly placed circular holes create a ceiling plane that designer Hansen describes as “cloudlike.” Handrails and curtain wall panels (where not just butt-jointed) are light maple wood.

To contrast the warm wood ceilings and floors, the architects also introduced water elements. For instance, water cascades gently down both sides (right and left) of the entry vestibule to mark the passage from exterior to interior. The water is sandwiched between two layers of glass so there is no splashing or spill onto the adjacent surfaces. The effect is quite calming and unexpected. The second water element is located on the basement level under the stair at the exhibition level. It is a dark (slate possibly) shallow pool of water designed to recall the “dark bottomless tarns found deep in the woods of Sweden. Interestingly the pool parallels the Rock Creek flowing just feet away from the building.

Spaces inside the 69,000 sf, five story, building include the main Swedish embassy, several exhibition spaces, a daycare center, and two floors of apartments and offices for use by the Swedish business community. “House of Sweden [is] a highly visible platform for the country and its commerce, culture, science, and diplomacy.”

I must also add that it was a pleasure to visit the embassy. It does just what the architects claim in terms of openness and transparency. The feeling was more of being in a well designed museum space than a bureaucratic labyrinth. One quote in particular stands in contrast to most ideas about embassy design (especially US embassy design):

“The House of Sweden’s combination of public and official activities and the broad expanses of glass run counter to the prevailing notion that embassies must be fortified bunkers…. few nations can afford to do it… we can”

- Ambassador Gunnar Lund

Related links:

House of Sweden homepage

Wingardhs (Architects)

Sources include Sweden.se and the WashingtonPost.

svgallery=SVGallery_HouseSweden

The basic points of Mr. Curtis’ article are that:

1. Sustainability is in the spotlight
2. Preservation has always advocated sustainability
3. Sustainability and Preservation share many core values
4. Historic buildings are inherently energy efficient
5. Embodied Energy – Preservation is inherently energy efficient
6. Preservation is / should be a part of Sustainability

The author begins by describing the dilemma facing the Preservation movement:

“‘Sustainability has taken the moral high ground from preservation.’ Old is nice, but green is essential.” said Henry Moss, an architect with Massachusetts based Bruner/Cott

“We in the preservation business have always been about sustainability and stewardship,” said Mike Jackson, chief architect with the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. “But it’s a message that’s not getting out.”

Sustainability does appear to have taken “moral high ground” from preservation. The evidence is abundant. In magazines, books, television and movies, the health of the environment is shown as an integral part of humanities ability to survive on earth. The message from Al Gore was heard by millions of people who now ponder their individual impacts on the surrounding environment. The US Congress has largely failed to move but the Supreme Court, the State of California, and the European Union are all charging ahead with plans to save the planet. Even religious groups are stepping into the debate by arguing that environmental stewardship is part of gods plan for our existence on earth (for more information please check out the great series of articles posted on Grist titled God & the Environment). I would argue that sustainability has in fact become part of a larger movement encompassing several aspects of society (environmental equity, politics, economics, culture, religion and science).

It is also fascinating that preservation does not get more credit for advocating sustainability in the built environment. I think Curtis skips a larger factor here by not pointing out the underlying tension between preservation advocates and supporters of broader development. Sustainability is in fact defined in many instances as the “compromise between non-growth and pro-growth factions.” What this means is that sustainability has the backing of both environmentalists and the leaders of industry. That I would argue is the reason sustainability has superceded preservation in the public eye. Bluntly stated, preservation is an impediment to development while sustainability is an achievable inconvenience.

Preservationists and environmentalists have long shared many values. For starters, there’s the drive toward stewardship and conservation of resources, whether cultural or environmental. Both groups subscribe to the precautionary principle, in which minimal intervention is always preferred to major overhauls.

This is a good point. Preservationists and environmentalists do both have the same basic values. I do think that both groups prescribe to the precautionary principle, but, the principle varies on one important point. For the preservationists the “precautionary principle” implies that the architecture or fabric should be subject to minimal intervention. For the environmentalist, the precautionary principle means that environment should not be disturbed unnecessarily, and that humans should encounter environments within buildings that are as close to outside conditions as possible within our comfort ranges. This fundamental distinction leads to a vastly different execution of the “precautionary principle.”

Just how “ungreen” and energy inefficient are those older buildings?

Not very, it turns out. The reputation of older structures as energy sieves, in short, is simply not justified by the data. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, commercial buildings constructed prior to 1920 have an average energy consumption of 80,127 BTUs per square foot. For the more efficient buildings built since 2000, that number is 79,703 BTUs. (The energy efficiency of buildings constructed between these years was less enviable—reaching around 100,000 BTUs—reflecting the cheap oil and electricity of the thermostat age.)

“People often tend to think that historic buildings are inherently energy inefficient,” writes Walter Sedovic, a preservation architect in Irvington, N.Y. “The opposite, though, is more likely to be true: that many historic buildings are inherently very energy efficient.” As he put it when I contacted him: “Before sustainability had a name, traditional builders incorporated sustainable elements into buildings. Working in sync with the environment was the norm, including siting, local materials, natural ventilation, shading, reflective roofing, cisterns, indigenous plantings—the list becomes long, and in many ways mirrors ‘new’ standards espoused today.”

“Only 10 to 12 percent of the total air infiltration in a building is through the windows,” said Sedovic. “The cold isn’t being transferred through the glass. It’s through openings in and around the sash. The energy loss is mostly through the roof and through the sill.”

The main point here is that historic buildings are inherently energy efficient. Of course… buildings built prior to the deployment of conditioning systems, appliances, lighting were energy neutral… they had to be. Designers were forced to leverage the local environment to heat, cool, and light the building (heating and cooling in fact may not be accurate because what was really happening in most vernacular architecture was that the building was a “moderator of the environment”). Almost every traditional culture has examples of architecture that mediated between interior and exterior conditions to create habitable spaces.

Comfort ranges have changed significantly in the last century. Where building occupants used to be satisfied being cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer, in today’s first world societies people expect to work within very narrow climate comfort ranges (usually around 72° F). The reasons for this shift in “what is comfortable” can be attributed to advancements in technology, better measuring instruments, human comfort studies, policy mandates (ASHRAE-55 standards / building codes), and many other factors. It is worth noting that environmentalists are currently in a very serious debate about the definition of “comfort” within buildings in the hopes that a loosening of the tight standards might allow more energy efficient buildings to be designed.

So I agree with the author that historic buildings are inherently energy efficient. I am less satisfied with the argument that you can compare historic buildings to current sustainable buildings. They are simply not held to the same standard of energy use within the building. I would like to see how the older historic building stock would perform if they were required to meet the same comfort criteria that newer buildings are tasked with meeting.

Also the last paragraph about energy loss through windows is very misleading. I agree completely with the author that replacing nice old lead glass, beautifully proportioned windows with cheaply installed low quality windows is a real mistake. Both the integrity of the building architecture and scalar proportions of the space on either side of the glazing is damaged. But windows are huge energy loosers! To argue anything else makes little sense to me. I am not advocating the replacement of every old un-insulated window panel. But I would argue that rebuilding those windows considering infiltration would be advantageous. Also adding extra insulated glazing layers on the inside/outside of the historical units is always an option. The important point is that the building envelope must be continuous and thoroughly sealed for leakage and R-value.

The alternative is slacking on the accepted comfort range for occupants within historical buildings to allow these buildings to operate in the way the original designers intended. But that “no-energy” solution appears to be a hard pill to swallow for most building owners.

“The most responsible way to buy clothes is to shop at Goodwill. And the most responsible way to build is to recycle an old building.” So said Yvon Chouinard, the founder of outdoor clothing manufacturer Patagonia, at the opening of its Portland, Ore., store in 2001.

The data behind embodied energy are compelling. According to Jackson, if embodied energy is worked into the equation, even a new, energy-efficient office building doesn’t actually start saving energy for about 40 years. And if it replaces an older building that was knocked down and hauled away, the break-even period stretches to some 65 years, since demolition and disposal consume significant amounts of energy. “There’s no payback here,” Jackson said. “We’re not going to build anything today that’s going to last 65 years.”

Yvon Chouinard makes an excellent point. A point that we discussed in a recent post on the renovation of a historic building in downtown Raleigh NC. Preservation is an inherently efficient act.

“Sustainability begins with preservation” is how the authors of the Whole Building Design Guide put it. And that could be the motto of the National Trust’s new focus. At the Trust’s annual meeting in St. Paul last fall, President Richard Moe noted that the preservation movement has periodically reinvented itself: It started with a focus on iconic landmarks, then took up the benefits of adaptive use before going on to emphasize the social values of preservation in building stronger communities.

“Now we’re on the threshold of a new phase,” he said, “as growing numbers of people are concerned about the degradation of the environment and our relentless consumption of irreplaceable energy and natural resources. Preservation certainly isn’t the solution to these problems, but it can be—and should be—an important part of the solution.”

Curtis closes by saying that “sustainability begins with preservation.” This is a wonderful point and should be a central argument in the further development of sustainable building policy. As Greenline discussed earlier when discussing the Cherokee Investment Corp renovation, “…While LEED does seem to deal well by placing emphasis on brownfield development and minimizing the development of and effect on greenfields, the rating system really does not credit adaptive reuse and historic preservation enough.”

I suggest that the Preservationists and Environmentalists begin to work more closely together on developing policy standards. The example of LEED for Neighboorhood Development is a perfect example of multi-organizational policy development. For LEED NC the USGBC partnered with the Congress for the New Urbanism and co-developed a set of policies that highlight and balance the vision of both organizations. The goals of Preservationists and Environmentalists already overlap, to have them further codified into building policy standards would be a great way for both groups to extend their influence.

For more information please read the original article.