Green ArchiTEXT

John Maeda: Laws of Simplicity for Design and Business

Ed Mazria’s Master Class | Metropolis POV

Ed Mazria, known to American architects for his 2030 Challenge to clean up the environment through sustainable practices, recently joined select members of the DLR Group at the Island Wood campus on Bainbridge Island, Washington to help them design a fictional middle school. Six different designs would be proposed to suit six different locales in an exercise that was part of the architecture firm’s annual company-wide educational retreat, focused this year on building skills to pursue the 2030 reduction targets. My interest piqued by the opportunity to watch Mazria in his designer’s role, I ferried to the island from Seattle one early morning to take in the day’s events.

In preparation for the session DLR’s six project teams went through a goal-setting charrette.  Mazria entered the first team’s room and perched quietly on a stool, chin in hand, listening, absorbing. With his relaxed, professorial air (he spent years teaching at the University of Oregon), he offered project-specific advice — in the hot, dry Phoenix climate, are you considering natural ventilation?  In response to the team’s use of Ecotect Weather Tool, which employs climate-specific data to generate their building’s optimal orientation, Mazria cautioned them about taking generalized recommendations “too literally.”  Instead, he said, “You can still do different things,” adding, “You can bring in daylight from the roof. You can break the structure into smaller parts.”  Like an enthusiastic student, this veteran architect took visible pleasure in the design process as he watched his suggestions adapt and change in the hands of the DLR staff.

via www.metropolismag.com

A Regenerative Building for SF: Putting the view back in Bayview

Bayview-Hunters Point is an environmentally blighted neighborhood is an understatement. The southeastern San Francisco neighborhood is home to Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, a Superfund site that has cost $350 million to clean so far, as well as a landfill containing radiological waste and 300 other toxic sites, according to reports.

But now it’s also home to Ecocenter at Heron’s Head Park, a 1,500-square-foot restorative building designed to meet the requirements of the Living Building Challenge 2.0. The center, owned by Literacy for Environmental Justice (LEJ), operates entirely disconnected from the power grid and treats and re-uses all rainwater, greywater and blackwater onsite.

via sustainableindustries.com

Peter Busby: Green to the Core

By Graham Livesey

Since the publication of his project "A House for the 1980s" in the October 1980 issue of The Canadian Architect, Peter Busby--then still working in Norman Foster's office in London--has made his mark on Canadian architecture, pursuing his architectural vision with singular determination. The house, influenced by Foster, Buckminster Fuller, and Charles and Ray Eames, was a work inspired by High-Tech Modernism with a strong emphasis on prefabrication and environmental responsiveness. In 2009, Peter Busby celebrated 25 years of practice, during which he transitioned from a small office to join forces with the fourth-largest architectural practice in North America. Some may see his joining the US firm Perkins + Will as a questionable move, but it is in fact a natural progression, one that demonstrates Busby's evolving skills and his response to expanding opportunities, and also reflects significant changes occurring across the industry.

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Busby has always sought to achieve innovation, and has had a longstanding commitment to research (including 4% of the bottom line invested in research) in his practice. Today, the firm's research group comprises six members of his staff and is growing, providing internal services to the firm in terms of researching products, materials and systems. They also act as a semi-independent consulting group providing expertise to a range of clients. Kathy Wardle, an Associate Principal at Busby Perkins + Will and the Director of Research, has been with the Busby practice since 2002. Trained in environmental and resource management, she directs the research efforts of the firm, and is a co-chair of the SDI program. With increasing demands to understand biology, ecology, chemistry and mechanics, the research group provides vital expertise and is reminiscent of the interdisciplinary "environmental design" model pioneered in the 1960s. Again, the investment in research is something that needs to be more widely spread thoughout the architecture, development and construction industries. Interdisciplinarity is key to the Busby Perkins + Will approach, particularly the integration of advanced engineering into the projects' designs from initial conception.

 

via www.canadianarchitect.com