Category Archives: ARCC Member Reports

Drexel University Research Report

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Dr. Mark Brack, delivered two papers in October on his research regarding
hermitages erected in 18th-century picturesque gardens. One lecture was
in Toronto, Canada, at the Society of Utopian Studies and the other was
given to the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians
at the University of Georgia in Athens.

Nicole Koltick, is the director of the newly formed Design Futures Lab, a
Master’s Interior Architecture + Design thesis research group in critical
design practices and speculative proposals relating to objects, interiors
and environments. The lab currently has 7 students in residence for the
year. The approach of the lab is trans-disciplinary and involves
collaborations with architects, biologists, engineers, computer scientists
and interaction designers in exploring design futures scenarios. The
integration of new developments in these fields translated into potential
objects and environments suggests a new model of interdisciplinary design
research and collaboration.

Nicole Koltick, had an essay entitled Entropic Ecologies: a Prosthetic
Approach published in Volume Magazine, issue #31 Guilty Landscapes.
http://volumeproject.org/blog/2012/05/08/volume-31-guilty-landscapes/

Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech University

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Texas Tech University College of Architecture and the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (LHUCA) announce Land Arts 2012 Exhibition. An opening reception will take place from 6-9 p.m. April 5 at the LHUCA Warehouses at 1001 Mac Davis Lane in Lubbock, Texas.

The exhibition culminates the semester-long interdisciplinary field program Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech in the College of Architecture and presents documents, objects and constructions by Zoe Berg (art student at University of Texas at Austin), Katy Chrisler (poet with MFA from Writers Workshop at University of Iowa), Cade Hammers (architecture student at Texas Tech), Luis Martín Medina (architecture student at Texas Tech), Maura Murnane (New York based artist), Colleen O’Brien (art student at Texas Tech), Jigga Patel (architecture student at Texas Tech), Nicholas Pierce (poetry and creative writing student at Texas Tech), Arie Ruvinsky (artist with BFA from Goldsmiths Univeristy of London), Cecilia Stewart (architecture student at Texas Tech). Chris Taylor, director of Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech, leads the program and was assisted in the field by Texas Tech alumni Jose Villanueva. Land Arts 2012 field season was made possible with generous operational support from Andrea Nasher and support from the James Family Foundation.

Land Arts of the American West is a field program investigating the intersection of geomorphology and human construction. Land art or earthworks begin with the land and extend through the complex social and ecological processes that create landscape. Encompassing constructions that range from petroglyphs to roads, dwellings, monuments and traces of those actions, earthworks show us who we are. Examining gestures small and grand, Land Arts directs our attention from potsherd, cigarette butt, and track in the sand, to human settlements, monumental artworks, and military-industrial installations. Land Arts is a semester abroad in our own back yard investigating the American landscape through immersion, action and reflection.

Students participating in the 2012 field season traveled 6,000 miles visiting locations across the Southwest camping for two months as they explored natural and human forces that shape contemporary landscapes—ranging from geology and weather to cigarette butts and hydroelectric dams. The itinerary included: White Sands, Jackpile Mine, Laguna Pueblo, Chaco Canyon, Muley Point, Moon House, Bingham Canyon Mine, Spiral Jetty, Sun Tunnels, Center for Land Use Interpretation Wendover, Double Negative, North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Galisteo, Marfa, Cabinetlandia, Gila Hot Springs, Mimbres River, Chiricahua Mountains, Coolidge Dam on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, Plains of San Agustin, Very Large Array, and The Lightning Field.

In recent years developments emanating from Land Arts of the American West continue to multiply. In 2011 the New York Times published a feature on the program and filmmaker Sam Douglas, creator of Citizen Architect, began work on a new project about Land Arts of the American West tentatively titled Moving Mountains: Land Arts of the American West. Since 2009 Chris Taylor has been involved in the making of JG, a film project by the artist Tacita Dean that opens at the Arcadia University Gallery on February 7, 2013. The Graham Foundation for the Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts awarded Chris Taylor and Steve Badgett a grant in 2012 for the design and construction of the Great Salt Lake Exploration Platform that will augment the programming of the Wendover base of the Center for Land Use Interpretation. Land Arts continues to recruit participants from within the Texas Tech community and beyond.

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2012 Field Season Documentation

 

All images by Chris Taylor, Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech University.

A Comparative Analysis of Letarouilly’s Rome- Past and Present

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Kevin Hinders,
Associate Professor
University of Illinois Urbana Champaign

This research involves the location, documentation and analysis of buildings, rooms and sculpture depicted by Paul-Marie Letarouilly (1795-1855). Letarouilly had two major publications: Edifices of Modern Rome (Edifices) and The Vatican and Saint Peter’s Bascilica of Rome (Vatican). Professor Kevin Hinders, University of Illinois School of Architecture, has been invited by Museum officials to make personal observations of the Vatican Museum and Gardens, along with accessing the Vatican Photographic Archives, the Vatican Library and the Secret Library during the summer of 2013. The Vatican Museum has agreed to allow access to the Museum and its contents for this photographic comparison. The investigation brings to light the current state of the structures, historic changes and original misrepresentations. This research provides a valuable window into Rome and the Vatican’s changing appearance, creating a comparative analysis which provides lasting insight.

This comparison between the 19th century engravings has several objectives. It will provide enhanced access to Letarouilly and his work which has been a significant source for a multitude of architects practicing in the past century as this work has inspired and assisted generations of architects. It will also provide a more accessible understanding for the general public of the nature of Rome and the Vatican, its rich history and the importance of its architecture and sculpture. The creation of quality urban environments is dependent upon the creation of both good figural and good background buildings. Rome has long been recognized as one of the most influential cities in the world as a design precedent. Understanding its mixture of the overtly planned and the collage of elements is timely as today’s designers seek to create substantial built environments for our time. The documentation of the changes and permanence of the designs is uniquely informative for those seeking to design quality buildings and spaces.

Background

About the Letarouilly Publication: Édifices de Rome Moderne

Letarouilly published Volume I (Plates 1-114) in 1840, followed by Volume 2 (plates 115-231) in 1850, and finally Volume 3 (plates 232-354) published in 1857 two years after Letarouilly’s death (1855). A companion publication, Table of Materials, was published to go with the set in 1857. The engravings were so popular that Volume 1 was substantially upgraded and reprinted in 1851. The enhanced rendering of the perspectives in the 1851 version became the basis for all subsequent versions of the publication.

The three volume set was used by architects worldwide as it was an accurate and relatively extensive set of engravings. These measured drawings were used by offices to create the classical buildings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, including the 1893 Chicago World’s Exposition. The publication was used by American architects and urban designers like Daniel Burnham and Charles F. McKim who executed designs for Chicago, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Denver and other United States metropolitan areas.

About Vatican et la Basilique de Saint- Pierre de Rome:

Letarouilly’s volumes on the Vatican were published in 1882- over 25 years after his death in 1855. His remarkable renderings of the Vatican have inspired a multitude of architects and his compilations of the various projects proposed for St. Peter’s is an important compendium for generations of architects and scholars. Both the Letarouilly works were republished in a smaller format by Princeton Press.

To date Hinders has documented, using digital photography, 130 of the 163 perspective views shown in Édifices de Rome Moderne. Out of the remaining engraved images, 7 structures are verified demolished, 2 were presumed demolished and the remaining views have not been obtained due to accessibility and/or security reasons. Six images need to be updated due to the changing state of the renovations taken since 2006. In 2008, a travelling exhibit, which includes one hundred framed, comparative plates and accompanying text, was created and has toured the United States (57 perspectives are included in the traveling exhibit).

Research within PhD Program, IIT

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The IIT Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture Program, under the directorship of Prof. Mahjoub Elnimeiri fosters and promotes research in architecture that is driven by technology to advance knowledge and scholarship in architecture. In our program we choose the theme of looking into engineering and technology from the eyes of the architect and founded in the Miesian legacy. Currently we are working on a lot of research on the area of energy and sustainability. Here we describing selected ones:

Project 01: Performance-based generative design approach for long span Roof structures: multi-objective optimization, toward the integration of energy and structure

This research is intended to incorporate structural performance and energy efficiency strategies of long span roof structures through an architectural form generation process. The main objective is to propose a performance-based form generation design approach for the development of architectural forms of roofs that are optimized both in terms of the structural performance and energy consumption.

Today architectural design is driven by the search for exotic forms and complex geometries which in most cases lead to complex structures and costly construction. In the current long span roof architectural design practice, issues pertaining to building performance such as structure and energy conservation considerations are typically left to be dealt with after the architectural form is well articulated. As a result, such an approach may enable a building to stand upright, and may also reduce the energy consumption in the building.

To mitigate this problem this research proposed a workflow to demonstrate how a flexible 3D model can be parametrically altered toward targeted solutions with the help of a near real time feedback generated by performance-based analysis such as structure and energy within an optimization algorithm. The integration of generative tools and performance analytical tools in the early stage of design will provide great opportunities for performance-based form generation approaches and help architects moving away from traditional form driven approaches.

Project 02: Integration of Daylight in Commercially Used Buildings for Energy Saving Purposes

The main goal for this research is to achieve the best total energy performance in commercial office buildings using integrated management systems, while maintaining the light distribution, temperature and air quality comfort ranges in the space. The idea is to maximize the natural light for both increasing energy efficiency and enhancing occupants’ well-being and productivity.

The research will primarily use computer simulations to model the proposed system applied to a baseline module and run the energy, daylight and system simulations, in order to calculate the daylighting and energy consumption in the building with the new system. The system components will then be verified via actual measurements in a real office space with the new components installed.

The verified results will then be analyzed, statistically tested and compared with the actual results of an existing system available in the industry, in order to evaluate the overall performance of the proposed system. The final outcome of this research will be the development of a fully integrated building management algorithm that responds to multiple parameters as well as controlling multiple systems in a real time basis.

Project 03: Optimizing the Envelope of Tall Office Buildings for Energy Efficiency and Thermal Comfort in the Tropic Climate of Dhaka

The aim of this research is to define strategies to optimize the envelope of high-rise office buildings in order to achieve a more efficient level of energy performance while focusing on indoor thermal comfort in the tropical urban climatic context of Dhaka.

In the tropical climate of Dhaka, the building envelope should be responsive with the external environment in order to minimize solar heat gain and to maximize ventilation opportunity to ensure indoor thermal comfort and energy savings (Muhammad et al 2005). But as experiencing fast ongoing modernization in Dhaka, local architects are often inspired by design ideals from temperate climates and consequently poorly suited with local conditions. Architects and designers are continuously experimenting with building envelopes without pointing out the outdoor and indoor climate relationship and hence energy issues are always left unanswered. In such a context, need to integrate the traditional envelope elements, materials and construction (based on their thermal performance) is important and, understanding of the thermal comfort requirement in the local climatic condition and its interaction with building energy consumption may address the issue significantly.

The research will firstly calculate variable indoor set-points by using adaptive thermal comfort model and also develop a method to use that in energy simulation program. Then the effectiveness of different ventilation strategies will be evaluated and quantified as a percentage of the annual energy consumption in the local context for more energy saving and thermal comfort. Finally the values of envelope & glazing parameters for optimum energy performance using appropriate optimization methods will be determined.

Contact:

PhD Program, College of Architecture

Illinois Institute of Technology

Phone: 312.567.3930
Fax: 312.567.6816
Email: arch_phd@iit.edu

Web link: www.iit.edu/arch/programs/graduate/phd/

News from the Florida A&M University School of Architecture

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The Florida A&M University School of Architecture M.Arch studio has been contracted by the City Of Tallahassee and the local public transit agency, Star Metro, to explore how an historic bus terminal can be repurposed to better serve the needs of a changing city.  Once the ‘hub’ at which almost every bus rider had to make a transfer, new more efficient routes have given C. K. Steele Plaza a chance to play a new role in the city. The studio will provide a series of alternative development concepts for the plaza and the surrounding area. Short-term visions will examine the plaza as it exists and suggest ways to begin its transition to an urban mixed-use facility, potentially including a State of Florida Civil Rights Museum. The studio is directed by Professor Michael Alfano, Jr..

The School’s Division of Architecture is also conducting an Analysis of Green Building Technologies study for the URS Corporation.  URS is the Institutional Services provider for the 4,200-acre Kennedy Space Center (KSC). The KSC complex includes 900 mission-specific facilities, many of which are being replaced by new structures, or modified to accommodate new activities. The FAMU project team, led by Assoc. Professor Thomas Pugh, includes both faculty and graduate students. Among other topics, the team has investigated several LEED certified buildings in the vicinity of the KSC as case studies, as well as materials or technologies that show potential for beneficial and practical use in this area.

The School has also been awarded a grant from the FAMU Green Coalition that brings together its Division of Architecture with its Division of Engineering Technology. Antonio Soares, an Electronics Professor in the Division of Engineering Technology will lead the project to design and construct a solar charging station for students to recharge their phones, tablets, and laptops.  The project will include faculty and students from the architecture, construction and electronics programs.  When completed late in 2013, the station will be a point for students to meet up, charge up, and wise up to solar power and sustainability.

Evaluation of the Effect of Vegetation and Green Walls on Building Thermal Performance and Energy Consumption

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The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) and several members of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) launched a proposal to study the energy-saving effectiveness of green wall façade systems. This research was funded by Wagner Institute for Sustainable Energy Research (WISER). Professor Lorch Osler, Director of the Landscape Architecture program at IIT, was the Principle Investigator (PI) of the research; Dr Antony Wood, the Executive Director at the CTBUH; along with Dr. Payam Bahrami, a Senior Research Associate at the CTUBH. Irina Susorova, a Ph.D. candidate in the College of Architecture at IIT, was the graduate student that worked on this research.

The project analyzed the ability of green wall systems, such as hanging gardens and “living walls,” to improve a building’s energy performance by decreasing heat transfer through facades. In order to do this, a model of green walls was to be built and validated with experimental data. Included in the research was an evaluation of the importance of plant, façade, and weather parameters for the façade thermal performance. It was also important to note energy savings in buildings using plants on their facades and formulate design recommendations for buildings with green walls.

The experiment consisted of measuring the façade thermal performance of an existing building covered with climbing plants located on the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Siegel hall, whose south and east facades are covered with Boston ivy, was selected for the experiment. The building had a lot of open space around its south and east facades with a few tall trees with low-density foliage that cast almost no shadows onto the studied façade. Two exterior areas located on the south façade were selected for the measurements: an area densely covered with plants and an area free of plants. These experiments were conducted over the course of four days.

(©CTBUH Left: Detail of the studied façade covered with Boston Ivy. Middle: South façade of Siegel Hall on the campus of Illinois Institute of Technology with measuring equipment attached. Right: Close up of measuring equipment)

The results of the experiment were used for validating the model by seeing how well it can calculate the exterior surface temperature and temperature gradient of the façade. Knowing the temperature difference between the bare and vegetated facades allowed for calculations in other façade properties.

This research addressed important topics of urban ecology and energy consumption in buildings. The significance of green walls is that they can help reduce problems of urban ecology and of the excessive resource use. Green walls, due to the vegetation component, can offset greenhouse gases and reduce urban heat island effect, improve air quality and lower risk of some diseases, increase biodiversity of plants and animals in cities, and lower energy use in buildings.

A Whole Life Cycle Assessment of the Sustainable Aspects of Structural Systems in Tall Buildings

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The council on Tall Buildings and Urban habitat (CTBUH), based at Illinois Institute of Technology has launched a multi-faceted research project to study the life cycles of various tall building structural systems, sponsored by a $300,000 grant from ArcelorMittal. Dr. Antony Wood, executive director of the Council of tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), is the Principle Investigator (PI) of this research. Dr. Payam Bahrami, senior research associate at CTBUH, is a Co-Principle Investigator.

This research will investigate the true sustainability aspects of structural systems through a life-cycle assessment (LCA) of tall buildings. The research is to be conducted as an independent study.


(©CTBUH Left to right: Trump International Hotel & Tower, Chicago; New York Times Tower, New York; Shanghai Tower, Shanghai.)

The CTBUH will bring together a spectrum of researchers and global experts from its unique network of members to the project. The Structural Engineering Peer Review Panel met recently in Chicago to discuss research intended on assessing environmental, energy, and economic impacts of structural systems in tall buildings.

The aim of this research is to develop a methodology for the assessment of life cycle energy use in a tall building structural system.

The research will provide an essential starting point for both policy and design discussions, and the results will be of interest to a wide audience. This LCA approach provides a new level of clarity for carbon accounting, which will help to develop more quantitative approaches to green construction in the future.

 

University of Maryland Interdisciplinary Approaches to Studio Pedagogy: Civic Engagement on Climate Change Studio

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For the last year and half students from the Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture and the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation have been working in an interdisciplinary pilot studio that explores the value of civic engagement on anticipatory design approaches to climate change impact. Directed by Assistant Professors Victoria Chanse, PhD. and Luis Diego Quiros and PhD student Kevin Adams, the studio addresses the larger question of how to involve the human dimension in developing adaptation responses to this uncertain process. As part of the research, students work with community members to develop different scenarios and design visualizations to evaluate alternative anticipatory strategies. So far, the studio has worked on sites located in Cambridge, MD, and this semester will be working with the community of North Beach, MD. The Studio has been funded through awards from the University of Maryland College Park NSF ADVANCE Interdisciplinary and Engaged Research seed grant program and the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station, and donations from the communities and its results are expected to offer potential clues as to how towns can prepare community members to understand and deal with the possible environmental changes.

University of Maryland - new collaborative research center

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The University of Maryland’s School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, along with the A. James Clark School of Engineering and the College of Agriculture & Natural Resources, is forming a collaborative research center focused on Sustainability in the Built Environment. The purpose of the SBE Cluster is to strengthen the collective research capacity and potential for external funding in the areas of energy, environment and water resources associated with buildings, building technologies, and the built environment. This proposal builds upon the University’s land grant status; emerging faculty interests; global recognition that buildings must be integrated with their environments to achieve sustainability; and the interdisciplinary research, teaching and collaboration that designed, engineered and constructed the winning WaterShed Solar Decathlon entry of 2011.  The three primary colleges that designed the Solar Decathlon house – Agriculture, Architecture, and Engineering — will increase their level of collaboration by hiring four new faculty who will join with existing faculty members to work together towards significant grants and research leading to discovery and innovation that enhances the sustainability of the built environment. The international success of WaterShed demonstrated our strength in this area and proved that real integration of the talents in multiple disciplines is one of the best ways to promote success. The SBE Cluster builds on existing capacity to create new synergy that heightens the position and visibility of the University as a leader in innovative environmental design that is effective, beautiful, and sustainable.