Student Community Research: Dillon Hall

BedZED Development Design

                 The BedZED Development design is the new and efficient innovation of the 21^st century. This building composed of 82 houses, 17 apartments, and 1405 square meters of work space meets high environmental standards. Completed in 2002, the building does well on emphasizing roof gardens, sunlight, solar energy, reduction of energy consumption, and waste water recycling. In terms of materials, the building was built mainly of natural, recycled, or reclaimed materials.

Using passive solar techniques, houses are arranged in south facing terraces to maximize heat gain from the sun. Each terrace is backed by north facing offices, where minimal solar gain reduces the tendency to overheat and the need for energy-hungry air conditioning. Buildings are constructed from thermally massive materials that store heat during warm conditions and release heat at cooler times. A centralized heat and power plant (CHP) provides hot water, which is distributed around the site via a district heating system of super-insulated pipes. Should residents or workers require a heating boost, each home or office has a domestic hot water tank that doubles as a radiator.

                Obviously, this design is exponentially environmental and a great innovation in being conservational and green. With minimal fossil fuel usage, this building would be a suitable living space for anyone with a knack for conservation and would be an exceptional home for a family.

 

Arcosanti

                In 1970, the Cosanti Foundation began building Arcosanti, an experimental town in the high desert of Arizona, 70 miles north of metropolitan Phoenix. When Arcosanti is completed, it will house 5000 people, demonstrating ways to improve urban conditions and lessening the damage that humans do to the environment. Its large, compact structures and large-scale solar greenhouses will occupy only 25 acres of a 4060 acre land preserve, keeping the countryside free of destruction.

                Arcosanti is built based on the concept of acrology, which is a combination of architecture and ecology. This means that the loving and the built structures at Arcosanti would work together like organs in a being to maintain the environment and encourage conservation practices.

In this complex, creative environment, apartments, businesses, production, technology, open space, studios, and educational and cultural events are all accessible. Greenhouses provide gardening space for public and private use, and act as solar collectors for winter heat.

The Coral Reef Project

Vincent Callebaut Architecture has designed a naturally-inspired master plan for a carbon-neutral village to house over 1,000 Haitian families displaced by devastating earthquake that struck the island in 2010. The Coral Reef Project is based on single, prefabricated modules with metal frames and tropical wood façades. The modules are combined and staggered horizontally and vertically to create two organic, fluid, undulating “waves” resting on a pier supported by seismic piles in the Caribbean Sea.

The design implements a wide variety of renewable energy and bioclimatic systems to minimize the village’s environmental footprint. The pier exploits the change in temperature from surface to deep water for sea thermal energy conversion, and harnesses kinetic tidal energy thanks to hydro-turbines to generate electricity. Wind turbines spring up in the tropical garden between the two waves, and photovoltaic panels are installed on the roof.

The roofs are also home to vegetable gardens where residents can grow fresh food, recycling their own waste as compost. Aquiculture farms with pisciculture pools provide fresh fish as well, and purification plant lagoons treat grey water before releasing it into the sea. The basement is also seismically-sound to prevent damage from future earthquakes.

Habitat 67

                Habitat 67 is an eco-friendly building comprising of 354 identical, prefabricated concrete forms arranged in various combinations, reaching up to 12 stories in height. Together these units create 148 residences of varying sizes and configurations, each formed from between one to eight linked concrete units. The complex originally contained 158 apartments, but several apartments have since been joined to create larger units, reducing the total number. Each unit is connected to at least one private terrace, which can range from approximately 225 to 1,000 square feet in size. The development was designed to integrate the benefits of suburban homes, namely gardens, fresh air, privacy, and multileveled environments, with the economics and density of a modern urban apartment building.[1] It was believed to illustrate the new lifestyle people would live in increasingly crowded cities around the world.