Bury me a building with a tree on top...

Wow, what a nice reflection from the windows...

But wait, what's this view? From the inside, that's a...huh!?!?? Is that a window-curtained loading ramp leading to (shudder) yet another friggin' environmentally friendly parking garage?*

Or is it another crazy ski jump from Julien De Smedt, although I doubt that's the case given the unfortunate launch directly into the window. With De Smedt's concepts, however, you never know...

A walkable, livable, enjoyable green roof? Why, I think it is?!?!

I. Want.

OK, this building is old hat to most in the blogosphere, but I couldn't resist a repost.

About two months ago, the first shots of the School of Art, Design & Media, in Nanyang, Singapore came out and were, well, were grainy and pretty blah. Now, however, you can really soak it in...

Designed by CPG Consultants Pte Ltd, the award-winning design is five stories tall and is made entirely of raw, unpainted concrete, cement-sand screeded (screeded is right, yes?) floors, natural timber railings and raw glass.

It begs the question: is it a building with landscape or a landscape with a building?

Light goes in, heat waves stay out. Simple. The internal water feature in the sunken courtyard also provides additional cooling, and affords the possibility of grey water reclamation. It's funny though, all I can think of doing is giving a grandiose speech on one of the palmed islands in the middle while throngs of people lined the upper railings. It would make a CRAZY amphitheater!

Via HERE:

Located at the junction of Nanyang Ave and Nanyang Drive, the new iconic School of Art, Design and Media is situated in a wooded valley right in the heart of the campus.

The design was conceived as 3 intertwining blocks that are apparent natural extensions of the ground. These blocks interweave to enclose a picturesque plaza and landscape. Major spaces such as the Auditorium, Media Studios, library and art galleries surround this outdoor activity node.

Tucked indoors are complementary facilities such as Stop Motion Studio, 3-D Hi-End Computer Graphics Studio, Soundstage, Sound Recording Studios, Audio Visual Editing Suites, Hi-End Digital Post Studio etc.

The highlight of the building is the verdant turfed roof which blends with the ground contour. Apart from its visual impact, the turfed roofscape is a functional space which is easily accessible via sidesteps along the roof edge, thereby allowing the rooftop to be a scenic outdoor communal space. Environmentally, it helps to lower the roof temperature and surrounding areas.

The facade design is a glass curtain wall in neutral grey colour. The remaining parts of the building comprised off-form concrete walls which eschew painting or external rendering works.

The external finish is reserved in its primary condition to maintain its design integrity and naturalness. When night beckons, the building lights up like a beacon that announces its warm presence. The interior lighting streams through the glass curtain walls to render the building a dynamic stage against the backdrop of the external landscape.

*For those of you that don't know this yet, NO parking garage, regardless of LEED points, is environmentally friendly. Urbanize properly and through away the keys!

Just chill...

I haven't seen much on the blogfront in terms of HVAC and refrigeration since the Freeaire craze of last year (now installed in Killington, VT, where they estimate they're now saving more than 86,389 kilowatt hours of electricity, while eliminating an estimated 58 tons of global-warming CO2 emissions annually!!!), so I thought I might see what's on the horizon...

My search brought me to Ice Energy's Ice Bear, an amazingly simple concept with an equally simple installation procedure (off-the-shelf easy).

Similar to Freeaire, the Ice Bear utilizes cool air conditions to reduce power consumption. Whereas the Freeaire system requires frigid conditions to operate at maximum efficiency, the Ice Bear condenses and freezes water at night when energy consumption is less costly. It then holds the frozen water in an insulated storage tank until daytime when the weather warms.

As the warmer daytime temperatures engage the air conditioning, the refrigerant is forced through the coils in the stored ice and chilled before being pushed in to the building's HVAC ducts, thus providing a cool stream of efficiently refrigerated air.

The Ice Bear® 50 system has a capacity of 50 Ton hours of cooling, including 45 latent + sensible and an additional 5 sensible only. The unit provides 7.5 Tons of cooling capacity for 6 hours of continuous cooling.

Typical configurations:

-7.5 Ton for 6 hours
-5 Ton for 8 hours or more
-Offloading of 10 Ton rooftop unit, where 10 Ton unit is oversized due to high rooftop temperatures
-Offloading one stage of a 10, 15, or 20 Ton, 2-stage rooftop unit

There is also a residential unit capable of eliminating up to 95% of on-peak air conditioning demand. And as an added bonus:

Assists LEED certification

-Adds 3 or more points to the Energy and Atmosphere credits

-Contributes to Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) credits

-Brings Thermal Energy Storage (TES) enabling performance to refrigerant based air-conditioning projects

Now, since the Ice Bear claims to use an equal or lesser amount of energy --in addition to delivering a consistent capacity on 95+ degree days with no degradation in performance and no increase in power consumption-- I'm interested to see if this concept could be hacked to eliminate the majority of the power usage all together.

Consider a location like Kuwait that has an average January low of 45 degrees Fahrenheit and an average August high of 112 (the low for that month is a crisp 83 degrees)! With the exception of brown-outs caused by dust storms throughout June and July, I think it's safe to say that the area is drenched in sun.

So why not saturate the rooftop in solar, submerge the unit's storage containers underground to twice-insulate their exteriors from the harsh conditions,* and store the daytime energy in batteries for nightfall, using the saved energy to refreeze the cores at night?

*You're only depth-limited by accessibility...sink the parking 5-10 floors below the building and you could run the unit subterraneaously, making it even more efficient, but still accessible for repairs. Check some of the commercial case studies and decide for yourself. I think there are benefits that exceed the burden of peak consumption. I just don't have the book learnin' to prove it.

I fell in to a phallic twisted spire. I went down, down, down....

Now that the US Green Building Council's annual conference, GreenBuild, has finally wound down, I thought it might be a good time to look at the city.

Believe it or not Chicago built its first skyscraper over 122 years ago, so the city isn't new to revolutionary design (and while I'm sure there is a ton of residential work taking place, I'm going to concentrate on corporate commercial). And the city is going green crazy. Chicago now boasts 200 developments either registered or certified as LEED buildings.

So what do they have to offer?

For starters, there's 111 South Wacker. It became Chicago's first Gold LEED-CI certified tower in 2005. The 51-story, blue-glass, 1.3 million-square-foot office building has the LEED basics: energy-efficient lighting, healthy paints and carpeting, and locally sourced materials. It sits on the site of the former U.S. Gypsum Building and unfortunately, previous plans to use the existing building's supports were scrapped in favor of a full demolition.

300 North LaSalle will have 60 stories and, more importantly, LEED Gold Pre-Certification. Situated on the banks of the Chicago River, the views are sure to be amazing. The stainless steel and glass façade almost dip into the water due to its proximity. There are a crazy amount of pictures available HERE.

After that, there's the 40-story tower at One South Dearborn, the second office tower in Chicago to attain LEED certification. In March of 2006, the tower received Silver certification in the LEED Core and Shell program and also won the NAIOP Award from the USGBC.

340 On the Park, completed in 2007, has 350 condominiums and two green roofs into 62 floors, making it the second tallest residential structure in the US. It was also the first residential tower in the Midwest to win silver LEED certification and has some great views of local parks, including Millennium Park, Grand Park, and the Park at LSE, all of whom helped the building earn LEED points.

330 N. Wabash Ave, constructed in 1973, lost 50% of its tenants in early 2006 when IBM moved its headquarters closer to Union Station. Fears escalated at the thought of the building losing that many people in that short of a period of time, but the owners wisely began converting the building into condominiums. Recently, the building was awarded a TOBY award for reducing their pollution by over 38,000 pounds and implementing a tenant shuttle bus program for service to the building from commuter train stations. Additionally, the building has also received recognition from the organization Clean Air Counts.

The Sears Tower and the Merchandise Mart are prepped for LEED certification, thanks to the Mayor and President Clinton. Their aim is to show that most buildings, regardless of age, can be retrofitted to accept green accessories. With Merchandise Mart laying it's foundation almost 80 years ago, this will be a project to watch. Not to mention, the building has it's own zip code (seriously, 60654). How do you green that much space?!?! Plans are already in the work to start construction on a green roof and I can't wait to see what will happen to Chicago's other landmark buildings.

The Wentworth Commons, winner of one of Mayor Daley's GreenWorks awards in 2006, uses photovoltaic panels and an integrated heat recovery system, non-toxic/recycled building materials, utilizes a light colored paving system in the parking lot and a reflective roof, and was even built on a brownfield.

McCormick Place West, which opened under budget in August is slated as the largest convention center in the US. It's original structure was finished in 1960, but burned to the ground shortly thereafter. The Lakeside Center was constructed in 1971 to replace the burned remains, until the North Building was constructed in 1986 and connected to the main structure with a walkable bridge. THEN, the South Building opened in 1997 with over a million square feet of its own. Finally, the aptly named West Building was August of 2007, adding another 2.7 million square feet. You think this might have anything to do with their bid for the Olympics in 2016?

Chicago's City Hall had a wonderful roof garden installed in 2001. I think it might be safe to say (now) that the roof was installed to test the concept for the entire city, given the technology was new(er) at the time. By the government initiating installation, it obviously sparked the interest of developers. Unfortunately, the roof is not open to the public, as it's protected by very narrow stairwells.

Last, but most certainly not least, is my favorite little phallus in the sky: The Chicago Spire. Although ground was just recently broken, I'm excite. This will be, by far, one of the most amazing views in all of Chicago (when complete in 2011). Located on the edge of the LSD, it'll peer down on every inch of the Windy City. I'd love to connect you directly to their panoramic link, but the site is drunk with flash. Go to their main site, click on THE BUILDING on the left hand side, then hit PANORAMAS. You get an awesome 360 degree view from where the site will be.

I don't know about any sustainable attributes of the building, but I'm assuming it has the basics, considering all Chi-town building now need mandatory minimum LEED credits. The base of the building, however, takes into consideration the massive amount of wind blowing on-shore. The twisting spire acts like tunnel, sucking the wind skyward instead of pushing it downward.

New two new USGBC websites...

In coordination with Greenbuild 2007, USGBC announces two new Web sites: a redesigned USGBC.org, and Greenbuild365.org.
The New USGBC.org

USGBC.org is now cleaner, smarter and easier to use. Whether you are new to green building or have been building green for years, you'll find everything you need with fewer clicks and less clutter.

Highlights include:

- a resource section to make it easier for projects to access credit templates;
- easier access to online reference guides and LEED reference documents;
- resources for members and chapters; and
- educational offerings and workshop listings.

Introducing Greenbuild365.org

Visit http://www.greenbuild365.org/ to:

- View free, live streaming videos of the conference's keynote and master speakers, including former President Bill Clinton;
- Read a journal covering the event highlights; and
- Share your perspectives on green building issues via interactive polls.

To the (smaller) masses...

Large architectural design firms have a massive amount of resources at their disposal - from the 3D printers to the LEED gurus to the eco-marked resource libraries to the specifiers to the continuing education classes to the specialized committees...

What's the little guy to do?

Founded in 2000 as an environmental/software consultancy firm, Square 1 research now devotes the majority of their work to energy efficient environmental design. Co-founders Dr. Andrew J. Marsh [insert bazillion certifications and accreditations here] and Caroline Raines [insert bazillion certifications and accreditations here] have developed and produced a ton of corporate-commercial software programs for purchase -as well as various free software packages- to help designers produce the most energy efficient buildings they can.

Various tools from their website include, but are by no means limited to:

ECOTECT

ECOTECT is the most user friendly and fully featured building performance analysis and design tool on the market today. It combines an interactive building design interface and 3D modeller with a wide range of environmental analysis tools for a detailed assessment of solar, thermal, lighting, shadows & shading design, energy & building regulations, acoustics, air flow, cost & resource performance of buildings at any scale. ...and even more importantly, it has been written and developed by designers for designers, to be as useful at concept stage as it is during final design development.

Solar Tool

With its interactive user interface, the Solar Tool makes the process of accurately sizing and positioning overhangs, shading devices and louvres easy. You will never use manual methods again. This software is a must for architects, planners and building services engineers, anyone who needs to consider the extent of solar penetration into buildings, overshadowing or the most appropriate means of shading a window.

Weather Tool

The Weather Tool is a visualisation and analysis program for hourly climate data. It recognises a wide range of international weather file formats as well as allowing users to specify customised data import formats for ASCII files. It also provides a wide range of display options, including both 2D and 3D graphs as well as wind roses and sun-path diagrams.

Little people, big houses....

How low impact is a $4 million house?

How low impact is a $4 million house?

How low impact is a $4 million house?

I keep asking the same question because I can't come to an honest conclusion!?!?!

The first ever Wired home, built in conjunction with LivingHomes, is coming to Los Angeles this fall. Apparently, environmental frugality comes at a bank-breaking price.

Flash saturated gallery HERE.

I just don't get it.

Of course, I'm the kind of person that will take a $700, Vegas-style bar tab over an iPhone any day. So maybe it's just me.

But isn't there an inherent economic responsibility in green design? Bueller?

LivingHomes, the pioneer in green, prefabricated environment(s), would/could/should have a better conceptual understanding of what this movement actually entails.

Pioneer [pi-o-neer]: one who is first or among the earliest in any field of
inquiry, enterprise, or progress.

It's a straightforward concept: modular design and prefab construction are driven at their cores by a lust for simplistic efficiency, both in labor and waste reduction, AS WELL AS ECONOMICS.

4057 square feet in what is destined to be a 2-person home is extravagance at its worst, regardless of the LEED rating. Even at half that price, I still think that luxury and the environment were never meant to live in harmony. Life is supposed to equal subsistence, not proof of existence.

Still, the one-day installation video is kinda cool. Size it down to 900 square feet and you could race an Amish barn by sun-up!

The press release can be found here.

Fortunately, projects such as these are beginning to be seen as the financial flops that they really are, and (woohoo) a "small house" movement is afoot.

From the SF Chronicle: Open plans, unpretentious design characterize new, small houses

Wanna take it to an extreme? Take one of Jay Shafer's courses. He's been living in small houses for a decade now. How small? Really small. How worth it? Really worth it. Under most circumstances, building costs for a home affixed to a permanent foundation range from $100-$200 per square foot.

I'll take a B-52 Bungalow: A not-quite-so-tiny tiny house, the B-52 interior has many great features - porch, daybed, cast-iron stove, ten gallon water heater, tub, toilet, vanity, four-burner range, stainless steel refrigerator and sink - with the addition of a bump-out over the porch. The form of this house was inspired by the airplane bungalows of California. Here it is pictured with optional cedar siding and a cedar shingle roof.

















More?

The M-House.
Alchemy Architect's Wee House.
The Small House Society.
On wheels?
On wheels ala the circus?

As far as I'm concerned, you can keep your Wired home.

Unless you're giving it away.

In that case, I'll take it.

No?

Damn.