Green ArchiTEXT

Tour of Chicago's New Aqua Tower

A tour of the Aqua Tower, the new Chicago residential high-rise, designed by Jeanne Gang, FAIA, Studio Gang Architects.

Yale Building Uses 81% Less Water, 58% Less Energy

PHOTO: Hopkins Architects

A new building at Yale is a working laboratory for the students that frequent it. Kroon Hall, home of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, uses 81 percent less water and 58 percent less energy than comparable buildings.

The building, which achieved LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, also generates about 25 percent of its electricity needs onsite from solar.

via www.environmentalleader.com

Vermont School Builds Net-Zero Field House

If ever there was a compelling reason for a school to build sustainably, it's the one faced by Vermont's Putney School not long ago. Namely, warmer winters resulting from global climate change had reduced the cold-weather sports opportunities the private boarding school traditionally relied on, leaving it with a sudden need for gym space for the first time. Its solution? A net-zero field house that's on track to be one of only five platinum LEED-certified school buildings in the nation.

By definition, net-zero energy buildings generate as much energy as they consume over the course of a year, and that's at the heart of the Putney School's 16,800-square-foot athletics building, which opened its doors last fall. Designed by Maclay Architects, the super-insulated, super-energy-efficient building uses the sun for its heating and electricity needs. Specifically, 16 sun-tracking photovoltaic solar panels power the building, feeding excess energy during sunny months back into the grid and earning the school 6 cents per kilowatt-hour as they do. In the winter, the building draws energy out again, but in an average year, it's expected to do better than break even on its energy use. Other green features of the USD 6 million field house, include low-water fixtures and composting toilets, a white reflective roof and local materials such as site-harvested wood.

via www.springwise.com

Bruce Mau on a future without oil

Q & A: Bruce Mau

The Massive Change designer on a future with less dependence on oil, losing weight, and why corporate social responsibility is a bad idea...

Bruce Mau, who started out as a graphic designer in the 1980s, uses design principles to develop strategies for a range of major clients—from big businesses (Coca-Cola, MTV) to governments (Guatemala). The 50-year-old, who moved from Toronto to Chicago two years ago, cemented his global reputation as a big thinker in 2004 with Massive Change: The Future of Global Design, an exhibition of the latest innovations in everything from health and warfare to transportation and manufacturing (a follow-up is planned for 2011). Mau, whose theories are the subject of Warren Berger’s new book, Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life, and Maybe Even the World, will be speaking at a symposium associated with Toronto’s Interior Design Show this week about a world less dependant on oil.

Q: So what does Bruce Mau’s world without oil look like?

A: It’s not a world without oil, but a world with an ecology of energy sources, where oil is used when it is the absolute right tool.

via www2.macleans.ca

Tomorrow's Projects: The Future of Education

Interview with Sharron Van der Meulen, Interior Designer and Principal, ZGF Architects LLP...as interviewed by Paul Makovsky, Editorial Director, Metropolis Magazine.

Paul: How has education design evolved in the last five or ten years?

Sharron: Students are learning in a different environment today. A focus on collaboration, technology and sustainability are all key to modern education design. While independent study spaces are still important, the priority is on creating more spaces for students to interact with one another in small and large groups, as well as with professors. At Duke University, we designed a central atrium that also functions as a work/study area and social gathering space. Students can pull up a chair and plug in their computers, or meet in small conference rooms off the atrium space for impromptu discussion and study. Five years ago, spaces like this were primarily used for circulation and socialization. Today, our design efforts focus on extending learning outside of the classroom by incorporating features such as wireless internet and comfortable furniture, and create a place to sit, study and interact in groups. These areas become, in essence, a "learning living room" for the student.

via tomorrowsproject.hunterdouglascontract.com

Austin's ZeroHouse is designed to be the greenest of them all

It looks like it could take off. And the two Austin architects developing a prototype for an off-the-grid house designed to save as much energy as it consumes hope their project does just that, figuratively speaking.

Trademarked as the ZeroHouse, Scott Specht and Louise Harpman's compact modular structure shouts "futuristic," from the composting unit beneath it to the solar panels on the roof. It looks as if it could be housing for space pioneers, but Specht and Harpman have their sights set on planet Earth for its first occupant.

The ZeroHouse design is on the cutting edge of the green building movement: so-called net-zero houses that generate as much energy as they use over the course of a year and handle all or most of their own water and wastewater needs. They are built with renewable materials and advanced energy- and water-conservation features.

via www.statesman.com

Hoberman’s "Transformable Design" Gaining Momentum

By Joann Gonchar, AIA

“Transformable design” is the term that Chuck Hoberman uses to describe the focus of his multidisciplinary practice, Hoberman Associates. The 19-year-old New York City-based firm fuses sculpture, engineering, and product design to create objects with the ability to change size and shape. It is perhaps best known for the Hoberman Sphere, which relies on a series of scissor-like joints to collapse from an open polyhedron to a tightly packed sphere. It has been fabricated in many sizes, all the way from a palm-sized toy to a giant sculpture found at the Liberty Science Museum in Jersey City. But Hoberman’s oeuvre also includes retractable domes, medical instruments, and a stage for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.

The firm is also applying its expertise with kinetic objects to buildings in order to create automated and responsive enclosures that can provide shading or ventilation. Facades are ripe for such adaptive components, according to Hoberman. “The envelope plays the single largest role in building performance,” he says. “Not only in relationship to energy consumption, but also with regard to occupant comfort.”

via archrecord.construction.com

Builders Zero In on New Goal of Energy-Neutral Housing

By Jim Carlton

The green building movement is targeting a goal once thought virtually unattainable: zero net energy use.

While the trend is nascent, dozens of "net zero" and "near net zero" developments – projects designed to use only about as much power from the public grid as they can save or produce on their own – have sprung up across the U.S. over the past five years.

via online.wsj.com

2050 and Beyond: Venice Biennale Finalists Announced

Twenty-four innovative submissions have been accepted for the Australian exhibition at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale.
 
More than 100 entries were received for the national 'Ideas for Australia's Cities 2050+' competition, run by the Australian Institute of Architects' 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale creative directors, John Gollings and Ivan Rijavec.

via www.architectureanddesign.com.au

Eco-building in Beijing Strikes Platinum

The Parkview Green, due to open by mid-2010, is now part of an elite global list of 231 green buildings that have achieved the rank. It is designed to cut energy use 40 percent, saving 5,000 tons of carbon each year, based on the country’s current green building code as the baseline comparison.

via ecoseed.org