This simple and sustainable design for the tropics is by Foster + Partners. Like their new design for Heathrow Airport it uses an undulating design for the roof.

Read more of this story »

continue reading.....

AJC Architects have thought ahead to a hotter Utah in the sensible ideas incorporated into their  Wetland Discovery Point educational building that helps educate Utah schoolchildren about nature.

These are the green ideas in order of importance to sustainable design:

1. On-site solar panels for green electricity - to make net zero energy onsite;
2. Solar thermal collectors for hot water supply and radiant floor heating;
3. Radiant cooling via infloor cold water in the same circuits in summer; (great idea!)
   
4. 10-ft high trombe wall collects passive solar heat;
5. Butterfly roof for rainwater collection;
6. Rainwater collection used for toilets/landscaping;
7. Drought tolerant, native landscaping;
8. Maximimum openings for natural ventilation;
9. Low-water use fixtures and plumbing;

In addition there are the usual elements that garner so many LEED points:

1. 95% of the construction waste is recycled.
2. Use of FSC-certified woods and low VOC products.
3. High recycled content materials used throughout.

…and indeed, this building has gained LEED Platinum certification, the third to do so in Utah.

It’s a good example of the self-sufficient new design vernacular in sustainable design - including net zero solar power and the new butterfly roofs for rainwater harvesting for a water constrained future.

Because Utah, in the American Southwest, is an arid land and will be increasingly drought-prone as our hotter future heats up the region.

Via Jetson Green

continue reading.....

Move — to Louisiana:

According to SolarPowerRocks! Louisiana has a state tax credit of 50% for solar roof installations, the most generous state subsidy for solar — Combined with the 30% Federal tax credit for solar that we all get now; (you knew about that, right?) so in Louisiana you can put a solar roof up, paying only 20% of the cost: (30% + 50% = 80% off).

The way this credit is designed it will benefit modest homeowners the most. If you need a $25,000 system, you get the full 50%. If you need a larger system you get less than 50%, because it maxes out at $12,500.

So, if you have ten plasma tvs and a pool pump and run the A/C day and night, you won’t get as much help with running all that…but

Read more at Cleantechnica…

continue reading.....

Given the climate change coming to most regions of the US, this new roof idea is a great passive cooling solution worth looking at even if you don’t live in the desert regions… now.

Because, by century’s end; you might.

“Summer temperatures in Florida could rise by 10.5F, with the heat effect multiplied by decreased rainfall under the higher emissions scenario. There would be increased hurricane intensity and rising sea levels leads to loss of wetlands and coastal areas.”

“When you’re out in the desert, shade is gold. It’s the most valuable asset you have, so to make more shade was [the] strategy,” says Lloyd Russell of this house he designed to withstand both the scorching heat and the cold of the desert for a client in Southern California.

Russell’s very low carbon way to cool a home is another example of how creatively some architects are thinking out of the box and in the process creating an entirely new design vernacular - architecture for zero energy use in a carbon-constrained, hotter, wilder new world.

Read more of this story »

continue reading.....

If every building had a white roof, we would be able to cool the surrounding areas. That is the reasoning behind a California law about to go into effect next month requiring light reflective roofs on all new buildings. It is already the law for new flat roofs here.

Here, architect Richard Meier and his partner Michael Palladino have apparently created a design to go one further. It’s entirely white; roofs, walls, and interiors.

So this luxury design of a cool  and airy Southern California beach house is glamorous and climate friendly.

Well, no. The McMansion-sized size of the thing at  4,280-sq.-ft is not so planet friendly; because it takes more energy to heat and cool a larger space. But this house would be well suited for a ground heat exchange to passively heat and cool itself with 55 degree air cooled from 10  feet under the ground.

As architects in California get closer to 2020, they will need to think more about passive cooling and heating and zero energy houses, as that will be the law by 2020. All new building must be zero energy by then.

Incorporate solar roofing on the white roof, and this could be a zero energy house.

The blue of a solar roof would visually extend right out to the ocean. (And conceal that horrible mess of  mechanical contraptions on that roof.) White elastomeric cool roof paint under the solar panels would help cool the modules making them more efficient on hot days.

But are architects thinking about these things?

With 2020 almost upon us:  “The beams at the roof, located above the horizontal framing, express the structural rhythm and layering of components,” explains the architect. “This cadence is repeated with the joinery of the painted aluminum exterior wall panels and modular windows. The mass of the exterior plaster walls are juxtaposed to the transparent glazed facades, creating a mosaic of layered materials.”

Blah, blah, blah.

Via Digs Digs
Images: Scott Frances/Esto

continue reading.....