Green ArchiTEXT

Hackable Buildings: Gensler's Office Building of the Future

NAIOP '12 Ideas Competition - Office Building of the Future from Gensler LA on Vimeo.

Fantastic video from Gensler - created for the NAIOP '12 Ideas Competition (Commercial Real Estate Development Association):

"Given workplace mobility trends, broadening employee and corporate interest in sustainability, in conjunction with growing economic pressure on businesses, the vision for the office building of the future in North America is no longer a new building. Instead the future lies in existing structures that have been adapted beyond recognition, beyond a use dedicated solely to traditional office work. These buildings will be forever known as the 'Hackable Buildings'." READ MORE>>

EngagingCities Explores Innovative Outreach as Key to Urban Space Design

By Alexis Canter and Brie Hensold

Nearly every public project conducted in the United States incorporates some form of public outreach. Today, in an increasingly global and digital era, traditional public meetings often fall short of reaching the increasingly diverse and information-saturated citizens of today’s American cities. Or, the efforts fail to incite the interest required to achieve the long-term buy-in for planning and design strategies that’s needed to see a project through to successful implementation.

Successful projects, on the other hand, leverage the process of outreach into sustained interest in outcomes. Public process participants, in the most ideal scenario, become the champions of the project through the long road of implementation and the ever more daunting challenge of ongoing governance. In this way, engagement becomes a critical path toward both project realization and design excellence.

Defining Innovation

Inspired by an academic exploration at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in the spring of 2012 and launched this week by Sasaki’s Urban Studio, the Currents: Engaging volume illustrates five recent innovations in public outreach as it related to the design and construction of public spaces. These are defined as process-as-event, on-the-ground, real time, early wins, and accessible materials. Each concept posits an alternative to the traditional public meeting format and is reinforced by a series of notable case studies in which outreach was a critical component of the design. READ MORE >>

via engagingcities.com

UniverCity Announces Plans for World’s First Living Neighbourhood

UniverCity on Burnaby Mountain aims to be home to the world’s first community designed as a Living Neighbourhood as part of the Living Building Challenge. This new phase of the community will eventually create as much energy and water as it consumes and be built using healthy, non-toxic materials. The plan will provide the platform to build, over time, a neighbourhood with a net zero energy, water and waste footprint– a global first.

via univercity.ca

Interview with Bob Berkebile: Moving Beyond "Green"

Nice interview with BNIM's Bob Berkebile in The Huffington Post:

Bob Berkebile encourages us to look to nature as our model for how to live sustainably.

Omega: For more than 30 years, you have been a pioneer in the sustainable design movement, and helped introduce the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard that has become the benchmark for green buildings in America. How can new standards in sustainable design help to restore the environmental, economic, and social vitality of communities?

Bob: LEED was created as a voluntary educational tool for those who wanted to reach for higher levels of performance in the built environment, but, as it turned out, the industry was ripe for a new standard. When the United States Navy and the General Services Administration made it their standard for design and construction, others followed and it became a standard. I would argue that, by far, it has been the most transformative tool in the design and construction industry in my professional life.

Omega: You've been widely recognized for your leadership in the industry, including being listed as on of the top five role models for green and sustainable design by DesignIntelligence. Were you always passionate about the environment or was it something that evolved over time?

Bob: I always loved nature. My mom taught me about observing the subtle but powerful forces of nature, and I try to bring that to my work. I always look to nature to see how we can evolve and change the way we build. Once, one of our buildings partially collapsed. I spent an anxious night on the rescue team, wondering if somehow I had caused this catastrophe. It was an epiphany. I became aware of unintended consequences and the need to change the design and construction industry to support life. This still continues to fuel my desire for change. READ MORE >>

via www.huffingtonpost.com

The Mighty Leaf: Peering into the past & engineering a greener future (via UW's Conservation Magazine)

Intriguing photo essay in the University of Washington's outstanding Conservation Magazine: how researchers' study of leaves leads to a better understanding of climate change and new developments in building skins and renewable energy.

"Nanoscale bumps on the surface of the lotus leaf cause water droplets to bead up, gather dirt, and easily roll off the leaf. This water-repelling, self-cleaning strategy has inspired efficient renewable energy technologies. For example, researchers have developed textured coatings—similar to those of the lotus leaf—that can be applied to solar panels to keep them cleaner and running more efficiently. In addition, researchers at General Electric are creating superhydrophobic coatings for wind turbines to prevent ice formation on the blades."

...

"Engineers at Royal Philips Electronics in the Netherlands have designed smart building skins that mimic leaf stomata. Much like the manner in which stomata breathe for a plant, these “skins” transport air, water, and light from outside a building—to be used efficiently inside. The “pores” of the building open and close in response to temperature, light, and other external conditions—supplying building inhabitants with filtered air and water as well as natural air conditioning." READ FULL ARTICLE >>

via www.conservationmagazine.org

Canada's Glendon College and the 21st-century campus: open, interactive, transparent

CREDIT: Glendon Campus, York University

By Christopher Hume

As long as you don’t mention tuition fees, university campuses everywhere are starting to lighten up.

Glass-filled pavilions are replacing Gothic arches carved in stone and red-brick Romanesque towers. From solidity to invisibility, opacity to transparency, the new architecture of higher education reveals all.

A sort of reversal is unfolding; architects who once designed structures that embodied the (sometimes uncomfortable) nobility of scholarship now devote themselves to setting a stage on which students direct their own learning in their own way.

The most recent example, and one of the best, is Renée Daoust’s Centre of Excellence at Glendon College. In her first Toronto project, the highly regarded Montreal architect happily turns the structures of academia inside out. The cloister has been replaced by openness.

There’s nothing new about glass cubes — Toronto is awash in see-through towers — but Daoust’s is one of special elegance. Sitting just inside the main entrance to the campus at Lawrence and Bayview, the centre is the first thing visitors and students see. For that reason, transparency also serves as a kind of welcoming gesture, a way of demystifying the institution and revealing it, symbolically at least, to the rest of the world. READ MORE >>

via m.thestar.com