The Last : The Beginning of the Old End.

 

With charette now over in our studios, and all final exams taken, the time for a final post on System Sites and Buildings has come.  The last week of the class culminated in examples of architectural projects that integrated various system strategies into their design, as well as a guest lecture by “PARABOLA: Architecture + Industrial Design.”  In their lecture they spoke about their advocacy for re-thinking the concept of waste, the idea of design based on cradle to cradle principles, and the concept of building in a way that optimizes water, solar, wind, and energy uses.  However the one thing that attracted me the most from their presentation was the design of a time-piece they designed in a small home.  It’s kind of like Prof. Sherman’s natural clock that he installed on a 9 inch window inside one of the stair cases.  However this clock lines up with certain marked areas on the interior surfaces, and some of the interior angles of the structure line up with the angles of the sun during the summer and winter solstices, and the equinoxes.  I have always been an advocate of light and light manipulation (as you may have noticed).  Moments like these are what excite me and  inspire my architectural design.  Therefore it was the most memorable and most grounding part of the presentation for me.

Prof. Sherman’s lecture had many interesting projects that he had worked on and had integrated systems designs into.  Looking at his designs though made me realize how large of an impact such design strategies could have in low economy, poor economy areas.   People would really benefit from natural air systems composed of cross ventilation and stacking, from natural light systems that allowed the sun to come into wanted/needed areas, and from architectural design that took advantage of elements such as water, natural materials, site, and more.  His designs reminded me of a very old architectural model that Michelangelo followed, in which he more or less said that architecture should be directly related to the human body (Disclaimer: I’m paraphrasing).  Two of the projects that struck me the most were the Wroxton Row houses and the Kinzie-Berdel Residence.  The way in which he created the square voids juxtaposed against the masses in the Wroxton project, in order to create areas that would always have light and shadow as well as some controlled breezes, was very captivating and inspiring.  The roof of the Kinzie Berdel Residence that functioned to collect rain water was also very inspiring.  This strategy was especially interesting because it could be a useful strategy in 3rd world countries, where families of low income could have better access to water and live a better life.  Potentionally, this is an idea that would hope I can put into work at some point the very near future, when my Father’s house in the Dominican Republic gets reconstructed.

Overall this semester was very useful and insightful.  I think my design will benefit from the lessons learned in this course, and I hope to carry these lessons forward.  This post marks the end of the semester, but the beginning of my new blog: Life in the Studio…

Thank you Prof. Sherman

Air Heating & Cooling: Breathing Winds by Trial & Error

Upon first glance the title of this post might seem a bit odd, unless the conversation deals with architecture.  This is because one of the most important aspects of a work of architecture, apart from light and thermal comfort, is it’s ability to breathe.  The ability to provide good quality air that adds to  a person’s overall comfort and experience.  As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, in which I spoke about Norman Foster’s Hearst Tower, the way in which we manipulate the air contributes to the thermal comfort and necessary energy use of a building.  The tricky part about air manipulation and air specific design is that it can only be achieved to the fullest extent through much trial and error.  Of course one would think that this would be the same approach to any other building system (e.g. lighting, mechanical, thermal, use, etc.).  However these other systems deal more with established rules [of thumb]  that can more often than not be generalized in every building or work of architecture.  You might not be able to generalize it all of the time, but just to give an example, most designers in New York City know that they need to worry about the very high sun angles in the summer that lead to “live cooking” zones within a building, and the very low sun angles in the winter that lead to “blinding glare” zones.  Design can be generalized for almost every room in a building with regards to light, and it could even be generalized at the scale of a  building, a city block, or a state borough.

However when it comes to air, it has to be tailored to very specific site conditions that are derived from site data collection and analysis.  The design needs to learn how to breathe air through repeated and meticulous “Trial & Error.”  Every room needs to be tailored according to the pre-existing conditions, the architecture itself, and more.  According to Kwok & Grondzik’s book “The Green Studio Handbook” air design, specifically air heating/cooling depends on a thorough understanding of three major systems: Climate, Building Type, and Patterns of Operations.  Cooling/heating strategies must be matched to these three systems that pre-exist on the site.  To use New York city as an example, again, a building in NYC would benefit from natural cooling strategies that focused less on thermal massing and more on ventilation strategies during the summer, since summer days in New York tend to be extremely hot and humid.  However a building in Arizona or Dominican Republic (or other areas high in temperature but low in humidity) would benefit from a design that focused both on thermal massing and on ventilation strategies.  This is a matter of Climate differences. More variables would have to be introduced into the air design strategies (i.e. building type, air speed, airflow rate, wind directions, etc.) in order to make it useful and actually efficient.

That is why I say that Air cooling/heating has to be tailored more than other systems.  Ideally the best designs are the ones that take into account all of the various buildings systems and optimizes the conditions of the site.  However the only way to make air systems work is by trying out ideas that work for one condition, and figuring out the faults or errors that are created on another condition.  Only when all local conditions are addressed can we actually create an air efficient system within a building.  Suppose an architect designed a building with a good cross ventilation strategy in a high temperature climate condition, in which he creates high air speeds at heights of the average person (so as to make the person feel cooled off from the high temperature) by creating small inlets on the building walls from which winds come from, and large outlets on the walls where winds would go (if there was no building).  This would be a great system given the conditions, but assume that this strategy happens to bring air from an industrial plant a couple miles away because of the way the wind patterns work on this site.  The architect may have solved a problem, but ended up creating a new problem that we don’t know if it’s better or worse.  yet supposed the architect never thinks about the ventilation, but instead thinks about the smell only and accounts for just the smell.  This is the case for my mother’s house in the Dominican Republic.  Her house is super hot, because the architect didn’t provide cross ventilation (which would have been useful for my Dad’s constant nagging about the house being so hot) in a conscious (or unconscious) attempt to block the awful odorous winds from a maize plant a couple of miles away.  The plant isn’t there anymore (due to poor economic conditions, etc.) but the warmth in the house still exists.  Not only that but the house has a low, concrete ceiling that only serve to exhaust some of the warmth it captures in the day to the interior of the house at night.  Maybe if the ceiling were painted white it would reflect light and heat instead of absorbing it.  Furthermore, if the windows would have been placed higher on the walls and were located in accordance with local winds, the house would benefit from the Bernoulli effect of air flow.

The point is that air design involves the most trial and error in order to make it work correctly.  Overall this section of the course helped me realize how important airflow design is, and how meticulous it can be to handle the three major principles of air design mentioned in the readings.  It would seem now that in all of my designs I am always looking for an opportunity to create air stack effects, venturi effects, cross ventilation effects through the architecture it self – the sectional and plan design.

Light : Seeing it, Again

 

For a while now I have been meaning to make a post about light.  That’s because out of all the elements of architecture, the one that attracts me the most is the manipulation of light.  Light has the power to affect the poetic gestures of a space as well as the actual function of that space.  When people sit in a well lit space they feel better, they work better, and they notice the little architectural surprises such as a clean slit of light hitting the side of the wall to form an interesting angle.  Yet after Bill’s lectures on light and lighting strategies, I realized that I had always thought about light in a very naive way.  I always thought that the more light a space and the more poetical gestures you can create the better a space would be off.  I only thought about light in the day, and never gave thought to the light of the night.

After Bill’s lecture I gained an even greater appreciation for light and even learned a couple of new things I had never stop to realize or question before.  For example, I never realized how long it takes for our eyes to adjust to light changes.  Furthermore, I never stopped to noticed that it takes longer for our eyes to adjust to the dark when we’re in a completely dark room (dark on dark), than to the light when we suddenly go outside on a bright sunny day (light on light).  Even more interesting is the fact that we become temporarily blinded whenever we move from a very dark space to a very light space, and vice-verse.  These are things that have happened to me before, but never really new that it had to deal with the rods and cones in our eyes that are responsible for capturing light and color.  I was also surprised at the fact that such a small amount of foot-candles is provided in case of emergency, compared to other activities.  Perhaps what surprised me the most about that lecture though is how important contrast is with regards to light.  In a space with high contrast (that might come from the use of very bright materials placed against dull materials) one foot candle would be sufficient enough to properly light that space.  In contrast (see what I did there….) a space with very low contrast would need a large amount foot candles in orderly to properly light that space.  This makes me realize that the key to choosing materials when designing a space is not just about what will provide the best thermal comfort, but also what will provide the best strategies for lighting.  What materials will create the best contrast? Which surfaces will be responsible for bringing in indirect light, and which surfaces will be responsible for diffusing light?  This is what allows me to be more decisive and efficient in my material choice when designing.

Something else that was interesting were all the rules of thumb that Lam provides in his book “Perception and Lighting.”  To me the most interesting rule of thumb, and probably most easily overlooked, was do not Over Do the amount of light (don’t O.D. with it). Having too much light, especially in unnecessary spaces, doesn’t allow us to perceive space correctly.  Too much light brings too many objects onto the foreground, and the eyes get confused about what to actually focus on.  According to Lam’s argument, the way we perceive light is by noticing contrast.  Our eyes are built for it.  When manipulating light, one needs to focus this light on the important spaces, so as to draw attention to them.  One must also keep in mind the use of that space, and accommodate light according to the function of the space.

As Waldman would say: Architecture is a Covenant with the world, Again.  I am “seeing” light, Again.