Robin Guenther kicks of the Living Product Expo with a compelling talk about the building materials economy and the ease with which it is possible to ignore the cascading negative human and planetary health consequences.
ABSTRACT: The paper will discuss the design of a bi-directional thermo-hygroscopic façade as a dedicated outdoor air system to cool and dehumidify outside air. The system is a variant of dedicated outdoor air systems to separate dehumidification and cooling in air-conditioning equipment and locates components within the building envelope. The integrated hybrid-building envelope relies on... Read more »
ABSTRACT: Available energy analysis and optimization methods do not produce fast and accurate enough results to provide guidance to professional design teams making massing and technology decisions. This paper proposes two methods using the reduced-order Energy Performance Calculation (EPC) toolkit with parametric building models and optimizers in Rhinoceros, Grasshopper and MATLAB to provide rapid feedback... Read more »
The open office has been a central theme in contemporary workplaces, reasoned to provide flexibility, natural light, supervision, cost savings, transparency, democracy, and collaboration. While almost 70% of US workers occupy open plan or open seating settings (International Facility Management Association, 2010), this design strategy remains contentious (Kim & de Dear 2013). These settings may... Read more »
This article discusses the importance of perception of spaces, and involvement with spaces during the design process. Over the last decade, mapping the relationship of architectural spaces to human experience has become popular as a successful design methodology. The beginning phase of the design process is characterized by perceptual integrity; unfortunately, this integrity often fades... Read more »
Our healthcare market sector is large and widespread across the firm. If there was a way to quantify the experience and expertise we have between our offices, it would be a very significant and impressive figure. Over the years we have demonstrated to ourselves the strength in our “collective collaboration” between our offices and have... Read more »
Concerns over the effects of climate change affect not only the architectural design world, but the larger web of society as a whole. As such, the solutions developed need to address the complexity of factors leading to current atmospheric carbon levels. Moving forward, new ways to work, collaborate and structure fees need to be considered... Read more »
This article explores various educational theories, research and factors that can be correlated to or have an impact on the physical spaces in which learning takes place. As school design and planning becomes more in tune with the influences that affect education, the connection between physical space and the learning process becomes more relevant. Drawing from sources such... Read more »
Institutions have prioritized the development of new residence halls that respond to incoming student classes who expect more privacy, social space, technology and fewer boundaries than any previous generation. To address the difference between student expectations with the current built norm, we have envisioned a new living model that can be implemented in new or... Read more »
| Lab: Education, Research Journals
Evidence Based Design (EBD) research analyzes the built environment through a very rigorous lens, one that takes its methodology from scientific protocol. Most environmental designers are not well versed in the utility of scientific methodology for demonstrating design efficacy, even though they employ a similar method of questioning. Using a previously published study as a... Read more »
Will online education render the traditional university campus irrelevant? Is there a “there” there when it comes to online education? What makes the flesh and blood, bricks and mortar material realm still relevant – even essential – to education? While online education has brought with it radical transformations to higher education, bringing people together in... Read more »