A team of University of Oregon undergraduate architecture students, members of the UO student ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers) chapter, will soon be able to provide some advice. The students have been awarded an ASHRAE Undergraduate Senior Project Grant to develop a net zero energy design toolkit

The ASHRAE senior grant program provides annual grants (14 this year, with the UO proposal ranked as the best) to support demonstration undergraduate projects. The UO grant will help acquire a blower door, an infrared camera (to detect missing or defective insulation), and test and balance equipment. The student researchers will develop a protocol for the use of the equipment; and this summer, five undergraduates will undertake field trials to test infiltration and heat loss in commercial buildings and residences. The comprehensive protocol will also incorporate analytical approaches to assess plug load consumption and opportunities for on-site renewables.

Alison Kwok, University of Oregon Architecture professor and faculty advisor for the UO chapter, explained that the toolkit and protocol is being crafted to facilitate investigation, evaluation, and experiential understanding of the impact of construction on performance, in achieving net zero targets.  She explained: “The protocol will begin with pre-occupancy investigations, continue with post-occupancy facility audits, and end with professional workshops, where students will discuss their building performance analyses with engineers, architects, contractors and building owners, addressing topics such as occupant comfort, system effectiveness, and energy use.”

In some ways, this project continues the case-based research and training methodology embedded in the Agents of Change program, which was funded at UO for five years by the US Department of Education. Agents of Change also packaged toolkits with field assessment protocols that were used by faculty and graduate student teams. Program resources can still be accessed at http://aoc.uoregon.edu/.

The UO ASHRAE Chapter, with 20-25 students, is one of just a couple of chapters in the country made up entirely of architecture students (another is at the Savannah College of Art & Design). These architecture students are particularly interested in the importance of integrating environmental systems with building design and ASHRAE holds important theoretical and practical knowledge that can help architects to build better buildings.

Both the close integration of architecture and mechanical engineering disciplines and the project emphasis on performance testing and assessment are near and dear to our BetterBricks’ hearts. As the top grant award winner, two UO students will be invited to present the project as part of the Student Program at the 2012 ASHRAE Winter Conference in Chicago. We hope that their presentation effectively spreads these messages to a large group of future practitioners.

And speaking of future practitioners, Oregon remains unique in having three student ASHRAE chapters associated with a single professional chapter. Portland State and the University of Portland also have chapters. Earlier this year, the UO chapter hosted the other two for a tour of the White Stag building’s green features. Additional workshops, with participants from all three chapters, are a distinct possibility.

NEEA’s BetterBricks asked Mike Hatten of SOLARAC and Jeff Cole of Konstrukt to present a performance modeling approach that aligned with the integrated design approach promoted by BetterBricks and deliverables regularly associated with design phases in a new booklet, “Integrating Energy Engineering and Performance Modeling into the Design Process.”  Aimed at architects to use with their engineers, this booklet, provides a recommended scope of energy engineering and performance modeling services to support the development of very energy efficient, high performance buildings. The energy engineer/modeler will enhance the design team’s understanding of project opportunities and constraints, challenge the design team to examine key questions, act as an advocate and serve as a design team resource to improve a building’s energy performance throughout each design step.

We would love to hear your success stories with energy modeling!  And any feedback on this first edition booklet.

To help round out your integrated design toolbox, NEEA’s BetterBricks – in collaboration with the University of Oregon’s Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory – developed a new interactive resource:  http://designsynthesis.betterbricks.com. This video-driven website describes the four major elements of integrated design, articulates important differences between the design process and the project schedule and provides tips about assembling the right project team.  Hear from leading practitioners from Mahlum Architects, PAE Consulting Engineers, SRG Partnership and SOLARC Architecture and Engineering on their experiences and success with the integrated design process.

Most architects and engineers talk about integrated design, but achieving it requires a higher level of collaboration and a more iterative process than typically gets employed. While early collaboration is important, the nuts and bolts of integrated design are the strategies used – such as the integration of systems within a building to utilize climate resources and reduce overall energy use.  This new integrated design resource provides a road map to tackling these important issues in your next project.

Looking for some design inspiration? You’ll find it here, supported by practical tips, case study examples, links to additional tools resources, and prominent video interviews with experienced Pacific Northwest designers.
Check it out : http://designsynthesis.betterbricks.com

This is the second of two interviews with the authors of the Mechanical and Electrical Equipment for Buildings (MEEB) Alison Kwok, Professor of Architecture, University of Oregon, and Walter Grondzik, Professor of Architecture, Ball State University. In this part the discussion includes another text book, The Green Studio Handbook. Part 1 can be found at here.

As MEEB has evolved from one edition to the next, many passive design and high performance strategies have been incorporated. But it has been a challenge to effectively present how an integrated design approach can lever individual strategies to greatly increase building performance. For example, Alison Kwok pointed out that “Chapter 8 in MEEB 11, Designing for Heating and Cooling is a really important chapter. Passive cooling and solar heating and nighttime ventilation of thermal mass and daylighting, are all in that chapter. It’s a big, complicated chapter with interrelated issues like: with more daylighting, there’s more heat gain from the larger apertures during the cooling season.” It’s very difficult to convey a process that effectively weighs trade-offs and that helps prioritize strategies.

The authors have carefully considered their approach to complex integrated systems.

According to Walter, “An analogy might be made to learning anatomy. Is it best to learn anatomy by never talking about constituent parts? We’re not going to talk about blood, we’re not going to talk about bones, we’re just going to look at the whole human being because that’s what we want to end up with anyway? Or is it more rational to start building on various subsystems and then at some point you go, ‘Voila! Now I understand the whole package?’

“I guess our philosophy as we begin thinking about MEEB 12, especially from a student point of view, is that it might be better to talk about direct gain passive solar heating as an increment and then talk about daylighting as an increment and then once someone understands those say, ‘Now, they do have to work together; they can’t be independent. And you understand A and you understand B so now you can definitely do some integration.’”

Rather than waiting for MEEB 12 for further elucidation, those looking for more immediate green design support can turn to another book that directly addresses the integration process. Grondzik and Kwok are also the co-authors of The Green Studio Handbook: Environmental Strategies for Schematic Design, a manual that focuses upon application of green strategies early in the design process.

“While we were working on MEEB, I had a summer school class here in Eugene and Walter came and was part of it”, Allison adds.  “I had taught a green studio the spring before, in 2005. There were many questions in the studio. I couldn’t answer them all. ‘How do we size a green roof? How do we know how thick this green roof should be? What kind of plants are needed and how much water should be retained, what about heat island effects?’ The students wanted to do a green roof on a railroad site in West Eugene and because they wanted to refurbish the eco-habitat. They also wanted to utilize stack and cross ventilation, and other green strategies.

“We polled some students from that class and conducted a focus group and asked, ‘What would be really useful for you?’ The responses were quite informative. ‘Well, some of our ideas are really just a blank sheet of paper, we don’t even know where to start. We need some guidance on what’s going to help us validate our decisions. How do we know how large an opening should be in order for cross-ventilation to be viable? We’ve all had basic courses such as ECS (Environmental Control Systems), but how can we actually use this information in our design studio?’

“Walter and I came up with the idea to try document 50 design strategies (although when it comes to what number to select, the sky’s the limit). We drafted some strategies that summer, but it was very rough. We also decided to include case studies to show how all these strategies come together, how design is integrated, how you can’t just do one strategy without considering others, and how to begin thinking holistically about a site and its resources.  We have a lot of case study work, so it was a natural to include them. We had just finished MEEB 10 in December of 2005 and wrote The Green Studio Handbook from January through April 2006.”

The resulting book presents 40 strategies and nine case studies. The strategies are grouped into a number of categories: envelope, lighting, heating, cooling, energy production, water, and waste. Each strategy is supported with a brief description of principles and concepts, step-by-step approaches, annotated tables, references to international standards, rating systems and guidelines, and internet sources. The case studies have been selected to showcase strategies in context. The book has been designed to serve as a handy companion for students and practitioners during schematic design. Strategies that are carried forward into design development may be supported in more depth by reference to MEEB.

Students participating in green studios taught by Kwok have also had the opportunity to collaborate with the authors. Alison again, “We encourage students to bring forward images and ideas. In the formulation and production of the book itself, we hire students to assist with drawings and researching background information. One of our intentions of the book is for students to understand the synthetic nature of a drawing, that speaks visually without having to read extensive text to understand the concept.”

As high performance buildings and green design become mainstream, practitioners are being challenged to broaden their understanding, to encompass many elements of both architecture and engineering. Hard lines between these disciplines are being softened and even eliminated. Both Mechanical and Electrical Equipment in Buildings and The Green Studio Handbook are valuable tools that provide students and practitioners with rapid access to strategies, case studies, and technical resources to support high performance and sustainable building designs.

Additional information about MEEB can be found HERE.

Find more about The Green Studio Handbook HERE.

What better way to bolster student performance than by flooding a classroom with natural and fresh air?

The classroom was designed by SRG Partnership and constructed by Todd Hess Building Company.   SRG Partnership worked with the University of Oregon’s Energy Studies in Buildings Lab (ESBL), part of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance’s BetterBricks Lab Network, to design the 1,500-square foot music classroom and fine tune a unique natural lighting system called the “Halo”.  The brain child of SRG and ESBL, the Halo provides enough natural light, even with overcast skies, so there’s no need to turn on a light switch at all during the school day. The system acts as a large central skylight with louvers that automatically rotate to control light levels.  The sun’s rays pass through the skylight, hit the louvers and bounce natural light evenly throughout the room.

The Halo was originally conceived as a daylighting strategy for the Mount Angel Abbey’s Annunciation Center for the Theological Studies in Mount Angel, Oregon.  In both the Mount Angel project and da Vinci Arts Middle School, a rigorous, iterative design process was used to maximize climate resources and minimize building energy loads.  To read more about the integrated design process from the perspective the Mount Angel team members – including Kent Duffy of SRG, Charlie Brown of ESBL, Mike Hatten of Solarc and Father Mee of Mount Angel – check out this interview series.  There’s also a terrific Mount Angel case study on the BetterBricks website.

Portland Public Schools plans to rebuild or remodel every building in its portfolio over the next 20 years and hopes to integrate as many green features as possible.  The da Vinci addition is a pilot project for the district to decide which new technologies will be included in future sustainable classrooms.

Project team key players included Portland Public Schools; SRG Partnership; Todd Hess Building Company;  Energy Studies in Buildings Lab at the University of Oregon which is partially funded by the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance’s BetterBricks initiative; PBS Environmental; Bonneville Environmental Foundation; Solarc; Greenworks; kpff; Listen Acoustics; and Green Building Services.

David Cook of Behnisch Architekten, and currently the Pietro Belluschi Distinguished Visiting Professor in Architecture at the University of Oregon School of Architecture, will be speaking at the U of O White Stag Building on Thursday evening May 20th.

David Cook, Dipl. Architekt RIBA, ARB studied architecture at the Polytechnic in Manchester and obtained his Diploma at the University of East London in 1992. Together with Stefan Behnisch and Martin Haas, he has been heading the practice Behnisch Architekten since 2006. He has held teaching positions in Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, and New York and has given lectures in Manchester, London, Aarhus, Cagliari, Miami, and Beijing, among other places.

Behnisch Architekten is a leader in creating distinctive architectural solutions that are environmentally sustainable. The Stuttgart, Germany-based architecture and planning firm maintains U.S. offices in Venice, CA, and Boston, MA. Notable projects include platinum-LEED-rated Genzyme Center in Cambridge, MA; Norddeutsche Landesbank in Hannover, Germany; Cultural District Riverfront Development Plan in Pittsburgh, PA; Unilever Headquarters in Hamburg, Germany; Institute for Forestry and Nature Research in Wageningen, The Netherlands; and the Harvard Science Complex in Allston, MA.

David Cook will be speaking in conjunction with the very interesting and informative exhibit  ”Design, Ecology, Synergy”  which  redefines the term sustainability by examining how people inhabit their built environments. This exhibition which toured Europe, showcases the innovative design approach of Behnisch Architekten and Transsolar Climate  Engineering, as illustrated by several international projects and ongoing collaborations.  It is a cleverly designed exhibition that demonstrates the human senses to the built environment. Human scale diagrams show our intake of the environment and our reactions to light, material, temperature, air, and sound as conditions determined or often dictated by the enclosure system of the building. The exhibition appropriately features audio, visual, and tactile displays including large light boxes where information on each category (light, material, etc.) is printed on the surface; videos of interviews and projects; project models, and large colorful dome luminaries.

Presented by: U. of Oregon Department of Architecture

Date: Thursday  5/20/2010
Time: 6 :00 pm–Lecture,  7:15 pm–Reception
Free and open to the public

Location :
Event Room

White Stag Building
70 N.W. Couch St.
Portland, OR, 97209