A Machine for Driving

I’m going to let you in on a little secret about the dreams and desires of architects: the building types that we find the most pleasure in designing are not the ones you would suspect.  Of course, we all have our own individual passions and talents, but for many of us, I can think of one building type that gives us particular satisfaction: the automobile showroom.

So much of our work is (rightly) focused on the comfort and cultivation of people, that perhaps the chance to design a structure solely dedicated to the celebration of machines is a welcome change.

A good example of this is a building that TruexCullins just completed and is now open in South Burlington: the Audi Showroom at 1325 Shelburne Road.  You may have seen this ad recently in the Sunday Burlington Free Press:
 

German cars are known for their superior engineering, but the Audi brand today is just as much about beautiful design as anything else.  And the architecture of the automobile showroom is there to serve one function: to showcase these beautifully designed machines.

The Audi showroom in South Burlington is a pure glass box, with sharp lines and crisp edges that contrast fittingly against the sinuous curves of the automobile. Smooth, rectilinear metal panels wrap a pure geometric form. Large expanses of glass extend all the way to the ground, with no horizontal mullions to obstruct the view into the showroom.  In fact, the mullions are placed on the inside face of the glass to minimize any break in the transparent cube.

The roof passes overhead as a clear horizontal form, floating effortlessly over the glassy showroom, with no need for heavy columns.  This is repeated at the roof of the service bay, where customers take the experience one step further: by driving into the building, their own car becomes the one on display.


Architects’ fascination with cars is nothing new.  The man who started the love affair and introduced architecture to automobiles was the early modernist master Le Corbusier.
 
Corbu claimed that the house was a “machine for living”, and he liked to photograph his buildings with a modern automobile parked in the foreground, such as this famous shot of the 1927 Casa Weissen:

Today, automobile manufacturers themselves are pushing this marriage between architecture and cars, evident by a slew of ads that combine the two.  A good collection of these can be found on a blog by Donnie Silberman, such as this ad for Buick with the car parked in front of David Chipperfield’s World Cup Building in Valencia, Spain:

Or this one with a Nissan Altima at the Diamond Ranch High School by Morphosis:

 

In these ads, the architecture is always modern and linear, portraying a rigid sense of strength.  The buildings set up a sharp contrast with the fluid form of the cars, emphasizing motion and speed.  The architecture here is used to sell cars in print, just as the Audi showroom in South Burlington achieves the same goals in glass and steel.

Our Top Five iPhone Apps for Architects and Designers

The way we practice architecture has changed a lot in the past few years through the use of rapidly evolving technology. From 3D modeling to document a design, to the use of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with clients and friends, it's safe to say this is not your father's design firm.

As we come and go throughout the day - from the office to the client meeting to the jobsite - we each carry an iPhone in our pocket. And just as the saying goes, "there's an app for that", we have found many apps that facilitate – or even revolutionize – the way we do our work. Here, then, are our top five apps for Architecture and Interior Design for use on your iPhone or iPod Touch:

1.  LIGHTMETER by Whitegoods
http://www.whitegoods.com/pressNews26.html

We have an old light meter in our office complete with switches and dials that measures the amount of illumination in a space. We use it to measure light levels in existing spaces, or to check the output of newly installed fixtures. But with this new app by Whitegoods, we now have a lightmeter with us whenever we need one.

Whitegoods is a company headquartered in London that provides lighting tools and products. Their cool looking light meter App is simple to use and very intuitive. You can choose to use either the front or rear facing camera for metering a space. Simply lay the iPhone on a table or hold it in your hand and it will start snapping away, taking readings every second. There is also a timer function for those hard to reach areas where you can't see the display but you need a reading.

With each reading, the App will tell you the appropriateness of the light level for different environments or tasks, such as "ideal for reading printed paper of high contrast" or "ideal for performing visual tasks of low contrast or very small size". This is one of the most unique and useful Apps we have seen.

2.  HOUZZ
http://www.houzz.com/iphone

We are big fans of the design inspiration website Houzz. TruexCullins has many of our projects posted to the site and we often get feedback from people who stumble across our work.

We recommend Houzz to our clients who are looking for a source of design inspiration. Gone are the days of clipping out pictures from magazines. There are now an infinitely greater number of photos at your disposal through sites like Houzz.

The iPhone App for Houzz takes everything from the website and puts it into a simple and easy package that you can take with you. Photos fill the screen, designer info is available with a single touch, and tags lead you to more information on many of the products shown. When you find something that you like, save it to an idea workbook for future reference. The iPad App is worth checking out too!

3.  COLORSNAP
www.sherwin-williams.com/colorsnap

ColorSnap is a free, versatile app that lets you build your own palette of colors from the vast Sherwin-Williams library.

Using your phone's camera, you can capture a color from a real-life scene, or copy a color from a photo you have on file. From there, you can match it to one of the 1,500 Sherwin-Williams paint colors and build a custom palette of corresponding hues and values. You can tweak the lightness, saturation and hue to get to the exact color you're looking for. Finally, the App makes it easy to find the nearest Sherwin-Williams store.

4.  AUTOSTITCH
http://www.cloudburstresearch.com/autostitch/autostitch.html

AutoStitch is an App that takes a series of photos and intelligently stitches them together to crease seamless panoramic shots. For us, this is especially handy when we need to document the existing conditions of a space, such as a room that is about to undergo a renovation.

This is how the app works: First, snap several photos on your iPhone, overlapping them by about 30 percent for best results. Then launch AutoStitch and move your photos into a holding area at the bottom of the screen. The app thinks for a few seconds then returns a perfect panorama shot. You can crop it, if needed, and save it to your camera roll for later use.

This is the only App in our list that is a paid App, but we think it's well worth the small cost.

5.  GLOBECONVERT Currency and Units Converter
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/globeconvert-currency-units/id334851202?mt=8

We are frequently finding ourselves at locations around the world as our international work expands to Eastern Europe and South America. For this reason we have a currency and units converter App on our list. There are plenty of converter apps out there, but we think this is one of the best.

The GlobeConvert App has been called the swiss army knife of conversion apps, with all the units you need, including currency, weight, length, area, speed, and many more. (How many Ergs are in a Joule, anyway?) This app is easy to use and aesthetically pleasing, a necessity for any self-respecting architect or designer.

Two Vermont Schools gear up for Solar Decathlon 2013

As a dedicated reader of the TruexCullins Blog, you must know we are big fans of the Solar Decathlon, the biennial competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy that pits 20 collegiate teams against each other to design and build a fully self-sufficient solar powered home.  After all, we wrote about the event here, here, here, here, and, oh... here.

Last year was the fifth Solar Decathlon competition since its inaugural run in 2002.  And last year a Vermont school was admitted for the first time: Middlebury College, a small liberal arts school that has no professional architecture program to speak of.  In fact, since the Solar Decathlon began 10 years ago, Middlebury was the first liberal arts college to ever enter alone, without teaming up with a larger architecture or engineering University program.  Despite this underdog status, Middlebury managed to come in an impressive fourth place overall. And of the 10 competitions, they scored first in 3 of them: Market Appeal; Communications; and Home Entertainment (which was partially based on a dinner party featuring a home-cooked Vermont meal).

The plans are being drawn up now for the next Solar Decathlon, being held October 3-13, 2013.  For the first time, the event is moving away from the National Mall and heading west, where it will make a new home in California, at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, just south of Los Angeles.

The 20 student teams chosen to participate have just been announced, and we are happy to see that two Vermont schools will be competing this time.  Middlebury College will be returning to build on their successes from last year, and they will be joined by Norwich University. Norwich has a bachelor’s and Master’s program in Architecture, and we know they have been planning for the Solar Decathlon for a while now.

It will be exciting to see Vermont so well represented in the field of renewables on this national stage, and we wish the best of luck to both schools!

Solar Decathlon Review, day 3: Our Favorites

This Sunday, October 2nd is the final day for public viewing of the 19 student-built solar-powered homes of the Solar Decathlon on the National Mall.  The excitement is building as the points are adding up and a winner is coming into focus.  Tomorrow, Saturday Oct 1st, the winner will be announced, the team that has accrued the most points across the 10 categories in fields such as architecture, engineering, energy and affordability.

Many of the houses incorporate some of the technologies and green design strategies that I described in yesterday’s post, but the best houses are the ones that bring it all together beautifully.  Here are 3 of our favorites:

LIVING LIGHT by the University of Tennessee

This house is based on the cantilever barns of Southern Appalachia, with an open plan anchored by a dense core at each end.  But the real intelligence is in the envelope.

The all-glass north and south elevations consist of a 16” thick double-façade system, with a fixed plane of glass on the exterior, alternating fixed glass and full-height casement windows on the interior, and internal blinds.  In the winter, the air space within the south-facing façade collects heat that is directed to an ERV, supplying the home with preheated air.  In the summer months, the system works in reverse, drawing fresh air from the north façade by the ERV and pre-cooling it before it hits the ductless mini-split units.  Exhaust air is directed through the south façade to cool the cavity and reduce heat gain.

Energy is generated from a 10.9 kW rooftop array of cylindrical PV panels.  Look closely: those are cylindrical tubes that make up the canopy over the south façade.  Thin-film PVs are wrapped around these tubes, collecting sunlight from any angle.  There is no need to worry about the correct angle of the panels here, since the cylinders absorb sunlight from all directions.

You can get more info on the University of Tennessee solar house from the project website, livinglightutk.com, including some great detailed descriptions and explanations of the smart façade, roof top array, and more, at: livinglightutk.com/smartsystems/

WATERSHED by the University of Maryland

This house is all about the conservation and management of our water resources.  Coming from the Chesapeake Bay area, the students of the University of Maryland drew inspiration from the 64,000 square mile Chesapeake Bay watershed and have designed a house that addresses the storm water issues that threaten this fragile ecosystem.

The form of the house is defined by two rectangular modules with a split-butterfly roof.  A 9.2 kW solar PV array covers one side, and a green roof tops the other.  Rainwater is captured from the roof and directed to a series of captured wetlands, where the water is naturally filtered by plants until it can be pumped out for reuse as irrigation water.  Greywater from the shower is also directed to the constructed wetlands for reuse.

 

 

Finishes include thermo-treated exterior wood siding of poplar and ash, and recycled concrete countertops.

This is the 4th time the University of Maryland has competed in the Solar Decathlon, and their experience is paying off: as of this writing, they are currently in 1st place.

More information on WaterShed can be found at the University of Maryland project website, 2011.solarteam.org.










 

SELF RELIANCE by Middlebury College

This is the first year that a Vermont school is competing in the Solar Decathlon, and as a Vermont architect, I’m happy to say that Middlebury College has put up an impressive first showing.

The Middlebury house, dubbed Self Reliance, is a modern take on the traditional Vermont farmhouse.  It hits so many of the themes we all associate with the Vermont lifestyle: natural materials, sustainable food production, and family-friendly spaces.

Wood floors were harvested from Sugar Maple trees on the Middlebury campus.   The kitchen floor and island countertop is made of local Vermont slate.  And the children’s bedroom furniture is made by our friend Lincoln Brown of Modern Vermont.

While most of the other houses on the Mall covered every possible surface with spray foam insulation, Middlebury came out firmly against the stuff and instead went with a completely cellulose-insulated envelope. They explained their approach this way:  “Conventional insulations such as fiberglass or spray-in foam contain particles hazardous to all forms of life. They are also non-biodegradable and require tremendous amounts of oil and energy to process.  On the other hand … Cellulose insulation is safe, low-energy, cheap, and – most importantly – natural.”

Self Reliance is focused on personal, sustainable food production.  A greenhouse wall in the kitchen is not much more than a system of shelves for growing potted vegetables and herbs, but it is centrally located and promotes home-grown healthy eating. By making this such a prominent feature of the house, the students are trying to highlight the connection between local food production and energy use.

This is a very family-friendly house, designed for a family of four, with a division of public and private spaces.  Most of the other schools seem to struggle with the space constraints of the competition, designing homes under 1,000 square feet with murphy beds, movable walls, and multi-purpose spaces.  Many don’t even have real bedrooms.  The Middlebury house actually has TWO bedrooms, and a play loft accessible by a metal ladder.

Middlebury is doing very well for this being their first time in the Solar Decathlon.  They scored 4th in the prominent Architecture category, and came in 1st place for “Home Entertainment”.  This is one of those categories that aims to show that these are real, livable homes, so the students had to throw a movie night and 2 dinner parties.  They probably won due to the delicious localvore meal they prepared, which their guests praised as being very “Vermonty”.

On Wednesday, Metropolis Magazine called Self-Reliance one of “the two most striking projects at the Decathlon”.  They described it as “a warm and straightforward modern version of a traditional New England home that beautifully uses native Vermont materials.”

You can read more about Self Reliance on the Middlebury College project website, solardecathlon.middlebury.edu

Congratulations to the Middlebury team and to all the teams at the Solar Decathlon, and good luck tomorrow as the grand prize winner is announced!

Solar Decathlon Review, day 2: Products and Process

There are a wide range of projects at the Solar Decathlon, where schools from 13 U.S. States and 5 countries are each building their own version of the ideal net-zero energy solar powered home.

The houses are built for different climates, cultures, and user groups, depending on the location and type of school competing.  But one thing is common for all the teams:  they have spent a lot of their own energy researching the best products and developing new design strategies for solar powered buildings.  I go to the Solar Decathlon to discover what the future holds, and I found plenty of new green products and design features.  Here are my Top Ten:

1.   Bi-facial solar panels:   These solar panels collect energy from both sides, collecting direct sunlight from above as well as reflected light from below.  It is one of the newest types of solar panels to hit the market, generating up to 30% more power.

The Solar Homestead by Appalachian State University made the most of this technology, with a huge outdoor space covered with a canopy of bi-facial solar panels set within a beautiful wood structure.  Every team distributed “take-aways” or brochures to those people waiting in line to tour the houses, and Appalachian State had a real clever way of tying their marketing materials into the design of the solar array.  Their brochure folded up into an origami hat, with a reflective silver exterior.  As crowds of people walked beneath the bi-facial solar canopy, light was reflected off their silver heads back up to the panels above, generating more energy, potentially pushing Appalachian State over the finish line.

 

2.   Smart home controls:  It became apparent pretty quickly what really set this competition apart from previous years: the iPad.  Home automation systems were all the rage this year, with iPads, smart phones, HDTVs, and even a hacked Xbox Kinect providing a greater level of control of all the home’s systems.  Many of the teams wrote their own apps, controlling everything from the lights to the heating and cooling systems.  The SciArc/CalTech team developed a system that provided real-time energy use and controlled the shades.  The University of Illinois had a very impressive high-density display that even told you which windows were open.

3.   ERVs:  When you live in a very tight super-insulated home, mechanical ventilation becomes necessary to provide enough fresh air to all the habitable spaces.  Energy Recovery Ventilators take the heat energy from the exhaust air (in the winter) and transfers it to the incoming fresh air. (or the reverse in summer)  Most homes in the Solar Decathlon utilized an ERV, instead of the alternative: an HRV, or Heat Recovery Ventilator.  An HRV also exchanges heat energy between incoming and outgoing air streams, but an ERV has the added benefit of transferring moisture in the air.  By reducing the humidity level of the incoming air on this hot and humid September week in Washington, less demand was placed on the air conditioning systems, saving more energy. 

4.    Liquid dessicant dehumidification:  A couple of the houses sported decorative indoor water fountains that were more than just pretty pieces of art.  The University of Maryland developed an innovative Liquid Dessicant Waterfall system (patent pending) that uses a high-saline solution to absorb humidity from the air, reducing the load on the mini-split air conditioners.  The transfer of moisture happens vertically within this glass box and is displayed prominently as a design feature in the room.

5.   Home-grown food:  Many of the schools explored the true meaning of sustainability by providing a way for their occupants to grow and harvest their own food.  Normally this wouldn’t play into the energy-focused categories of the Solar Decathlon, but this year’s competition included a Home Entertainment category, in which each team had to throw 2 dinner parties for their neighbors.  This was a chance for the teams to show off their home-grown foods.

The New York team oriented its kitchen directly opposite large glass doors that open onto the outdoor roof garden, for easy picking at mealtime. The garden produces about 190 pounds of vegetables, about half of the resident’s annual consumption.

The Middlebury College house features a green wall in the kitchen and outdoor planters for growing vegetables and herbs.  In lieu of a brochure, visitors to the house received a packet of seeds.

The University of Maryland used composted waste as nutrients for food production in their vegetable and vertical gardens.

6.  Phase change materials:  In order to minimize unwanted solar gain, phase change materials [PCMs] are used to store heat energy and slowly release it at night. At the Solar Homestead by Appalachian State University, a modern Trombe wall consists of a plant oil mixture contained in a series of vertical fins.  In the evening, energy stored in these PCMs is released as the wax resolidifies and transfers its heat to the house.

In the mechanical room, phase change materials are also used to capture and store energy from a solar thermal skylight.  The hot water-glycol mix from the solar thermal system runs through tanks of paraffin wax, which stores about 50,000 BTUs of energy.  This setup replaces a traditional water heater.

7.   Adaptable furniture:  By the nature of the competition, smaller houses have an advantage because they contain less cubic space to heat and cool.  But each house has to include the required spaces and amenities.  As a result, the students tend to come up with some clever space-saving solutions. We saw sliding walls, pivoting panels, and adaptable furniture.

SciArc and CalTech designed a family of upholstered lounge seating that nests like a puzzle into the wall when not in use.  The University of Tennessee house featured a retractable bed that disappeared up into the living room wall cabinet.  And the University of Maryland house had a dining table that folded open into a bed.

8.   Micro-inverters:  With a solar PV array, an inverter is needed to convert the DC-current that is produced by the solar panels into the standard AC-current that is used in the home. Typically, a single inverter is used with a whole array of panels, but if one of the panels is shaded or dirty, its limited output will be reflected in the whole system.  Micro inverters are used so that each panel can operate at its maximum capacity.  Many of the schools used micro inverters, with one connected to every individual panel.  In this setup, each panel operates at its own peak level.

9.  Water Reuse:  The collection, treatment, and reuse of rainwater and greywater is an important aspect of many of the houses.

The outdoor planters of the SciArc / CalTech house are connected to the greywater system and are automatically watered based on weather forecast data.  WaterShed by the University of Maryland is designed with two sloping roofs that direct rainwater to a constructed wetland, where it is stored and filtered for reuse for irrigation.

10. PV solar shading:  Rather than being content to apply their solar panels to their roof, some of the teams elected to hold them off the house, creating secondary structures.  The University of Tennessee and Team Massachusetts  both created solar canopies in front of their buildings, which provided a shaded area outside, and cut down on direct solar gain hitting the windows of the front façade.  By removing the PV panels from direct contact with the roof, this also allows for ventilation on all sides.  This keeps the panels cooler and lets them operate more efficiently.

The best houses in the Solar Decathlon incorporated many of these products and features, and did so with consistency, harmony, and beauty.

There are only 2 days left until the final winner is announced.  To learn more about all the teams and follow the current rankings, go to solardecathlon.gov.

Tomorrow I’ll wrap up my review of the Solar Decathlon with a shorter list of my overall favorites.

Solar Decathlon Review, day 1: Market Appeal

 

I just returned from the Solar Decathlon in Washington DC, where 19 teams of college and university students are competing to design and build the best energy-efficient house powered by the sun.  Each school has constructed their home on the mall, a net-zero building between 600 and 1,000 square feet.

This is the fifth US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, and there are a few noticeable differences since it first started in 2002.  The biggest change is the location.  Previously located on the main stretch of the National Mall, under the shadow of the Washington Monument, the event this year was relocated to a slightly more remote location, on the edge of the Tidal Basin near the FDR Memorial.  (The Park Service claimed the construction vehicles were destroying the grass. Jeesh!)  But being off the beaten path didn’t seem to do anything to keep the crowds away, as long lines began forming by early afternoon on this overcast Saturday.

The other major changes to this year’s Solar Decathlon have to do with the structure of the competition itself.  Each house is measured or judged in the following 10 categories:

• Architecture
• Market Appeal
• Engineering
• Communications
• Affordability
• Comfort Zone
• Hot Water
• Appliances
• Home Entertainment
• Energy Balance 

It seems the Department of Energy has an agenda this year to spread the message that going ‘green’ is affordable and within reach, so they’ve tweaked the rules a bit to appeal to the skeptical American homeowner.  

One of the students on site explained to me that at the 2009 Solar Decathlon, the winning German team spent $1.2 million on their house, covering every possible surface with PVs to maximize their energy production.   Up until now, students were rewarded for producing surplus energy beyond net-zero.  Each team was given an electric car to drive around town on the surplus energy they produced, racking up miles and points.

In response to the excessive spending, a few changes were made that alter the focus of the event.  First off, a new category was added this year: Affordability.

Each house is assessed by a construction estimator, and if the total cost comes in below $250,000, the team is awarded the full 100 points in that category.  As the cost goes up, the number of points are reduced, down to zero points awarded for a cost of over $600,000.

In addition, there are no longer any rewards for producing surplus energy beyond that which the houses consume.  At previous Decathlons, the houses were off-the-grid, so each home relied on a large bank of batteries to store extra energy.  This year, there were no batteries in sight.  A miniature utility grid was constructed on site, and no additional points were awarded for energy produced beyond net-zero.

Closely related to affordability is “Market Appeal”.  In this category, each team determines who their target market is, and their house is judged on its livability, constructability, and “curb appeal”. 

One of the most often asked questions is where the house will be when the competition ends.  One of the teams chose to leverage the affordability aspect and design their house for a family in need through Habitat for Humanity.  The Empowerhouse is a joint venture of Parsons the New School for Design and Stevens Institute of Technology.

Another school, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has designed their house as a rapid-response emergency solution for areas affected by natural disasters.  The Re-home can be deployed quickly as an affordable, self-powered source of shelter for those left homeless.

The most unique approach I found to market appeal was from the City College of New York.  Their Solar Roofpod is designed to be placed atop an existing mid-rise urban building, taking advantage of underutilized roof space and feeding energy to its host building below.  

But enough about affordability and market appeal.  Let’s talk about what we really look for in the Solar Decathlon:  technological innovation, creative solutions, and new products that have been exhaustively researched and fully vetted by passionate students out to change the world.  Big solutions to the big problem of global climate change.

Tomorrow I will share some of these new products and creative strategies that I found at the Solar Decathlon for making a better net-zero solar powered home.