Competition entry, 04.2006
The goal of this AIA competition was to integrate high design with high sustainability. The competition brief required live space for one (an ecologist) and work space for up to eight. The Studio's scheme answered the call with a concrete structure cantilevered out of the ground. Two levels span out over the ground plane without touching it. All the energy needed for the structure is produced on site (photovoltaic and thermal solar panels, and geothermal heating / cooling). A crow's nest sits atop the structure, offering a view space. The resident constantly traverses from interior to exterior as a part of the daily use of the structure helping to heighten the ecologist's connection to the surroundings.
SUBMITTED COMPETITION PROJECT DESCRIPTION
This project attempts to reconcile the distance between design and sustainability. The two have been separated, at least in the American imagination, by a conflation of economy with sustainability on one hand, and excess with design on the other.
The phrase sustainability - along with its synonyms “green,” “ecological,” etc. - has stood for a denial of all aspects of architecture except for a building’s ability to harness natural forces for physical comfort. Lessons of scale and proportion, and connections to historical and theoretical contexts, are often jettisoned in the name of sustainability. In a sense, we have marginalized sustainability from the dynamic center of our profession. By conceptualizing sustainability in isolation from the body of architecture, we have made the concept unappetizing.
Design too has been ghettoized, albeit to a lesser extent than sustainability. Our power over the world, unleashed at the start of the industrial revolution, continues to grow in strength today. We have allowed this power to corrupt our definition of design. From Vitruvius’s famous definition of good design - “firmitas, utilitas, et venustas” - we have removed the firmness and commodity. All we have left ourselves is delight. So much of high design today resembles an isolated sculpture rather than a complete work of architecture. Because we can overpower nature, high design often sees sustainability as imposing unnecessary constraints. Our reach does not exceed our grasp. Rather it is our grasp that exceeds our reach.
So how do we bring these two enemy camps into the fold? How do we integrate sustainability and design so that each can be used as a modifier of the other?
This project starts by accepting a basic set of sustainability precepts, such as solar orientation, the use of mass for solar energy storage, and minimal physical insertion into the landscape. The building is oriented to the cardinal points, with the concrete pier wall running east to west. Concrete walls and floors store heat during the winter day for release in the night and store cold in the summer night for release in the day. The building cantilevers from a single pier, allowing the ground plane to run under most of the occupied space above.
Next, the project utilizes current technology to lift the building off the “grid.” A glass solar chimney exhausts (or draws down) heat. The chimney also encloses solar hot water panels, creating a greenhouse of sorts. Thus radiation and convection energy are put into the panels. The east and west exposures are controlled through a translucent double facade. With an overall depth of 12”, the double glass wall conceals rollershades. A photovoltaic solar panel array shades the balance of the east facade, making clear high performance vision glass feasible. This array tracks the sun via a lift-and-tilt geared assembly, optimizing the panels’ angle to the sun. Radiant flooring technology, embedded within the concrete floors, circulates warm or cool water, depending on the weather. Geothermal energy is harnessed. Rainwater is collected in the meadow grass roof, and any excess water is diverted to a ground water recharge reservoir.
Achieving technical sustainability, the project ultimately aims to inspire its occupant and guests. Like our dreams, the building reaches to the sky with vertiginous cantilevered stairways; the final stair leads to a crows nest up among the tree tops. Moving through the house, the ecologist goes from interior to exterior - there are many thresholds between the two. The building also dances with the sun as the solar array opens up and tilts over the course of the day.
An architecture of sustainability and delight.