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. [...]
Playing the Building: Harmonics and Transparency of Building Systems
David Byrne, co-founder of the Talking Heads, has turned the New York Battery Maritime Building into a musical instrument. Sitting at a old pipe organ, any ‘musician’ is able to sonically explore the complexity of the building’s system without ever leaving the composers seat. A heavy sound may be for structure. A light sound could [...]
The San Francisco Federal Building: A High Performance Sustainable Workplace?
The U.S. Federal Building in San Francisco is one of the General Services Administration’s (GSAs) most visible attempts at designing a high performance government building. The project is one of many started following the 1993 adoption of the “Design Excellence Program,” in which the federal government sought to “reach into the private sector to find [...]
Zollverein School Building: Active Thermal Insulation
30°C Coal Mine Water + Radiant Exterior Wall System + Structure = Active Thermal Insulation
The Zollverein School of Business Management and Design building is a model project for systems integration. It uses a sophisticated Active Thermal Insulation system consisting of preheated water circulating through the facade which allows for thin exterior structural walls perforated [...]
Smith House: A Passive House in Illinois
The Smith House, located in Urbana Illinois, is an all electric house built to the German Passive House Building Standard. To achieve the passive standard, architect and owner, Katrin Klingenberg, created a clean, efficient and comfortable house design using many of the passive house design strategies used in German model buildings. She describes the house [...]
Waldsee BioHaus: First Certified Passive House in the U.S.
In 2006, the Waldsee BioHaus became the first building in the United States to be certified with the German Passive House Building Standard. The house, built at the German Concordia Language Village of Waldsee in Bemidji Minnesota, uses about 85% less energy than a house designed to meet the Minnesota Energy Code. For that reason, [...]