Daniel E. Williams. Sustainable Design. Ecology, architecture and planning. (анг. яз)

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9. Provide a balanced network for movement. Design city streets to accommodate

pedestrians, cars, buses, bikes, on-street parking, landscaping, lighting, and

signs.

10. Foster public safety. Increase the number of people in public spaces downtown,

along the riverfront, and in the neighborhoods.

Design Team

Ken Greenberg, Greenberg Consultants, Inc.

Ken Bowers, Phillips Preiss Shapiro Associates, Inc.

Mary Jukuri, JJR

Daniel Williams, Daniel Williams Architects and Planners

Charlotte DeWitt, International Events, Ltd.

SUSTAINABLE URBAN AND COMMUNITY CASE STUDIES 101

CHAPTER FIVE

architectural design

The ecological model is powered by energy and resources resident to the site

and bioregion. Ecology is place-based, connecting form and biological

function as a system. When this kind of systems thinking is applied to

architectural design, it suggests that the design acts as the collector and

concentrator of those resident energies and resources. The connection,

collection, and concentration of these energies can provide comfort, value,

and delight. Sustainable design accomplishes the most with the least energy

consumption and in a connected and comprehensive manner.

—Dan Williams

he historic roots of architecture lie in the connections between the natural place

and its inherent ability to provide comfort and security to the inhabitants. Archi-

tecture up until 100 years ago had to be ingenious in providing comfort by integrat-

ing passive elements of the natural place into design solutions. Passive elements

include warm air rising, prevailing breezes, ventilation chimneys, floor plans propor-

tioned and oriented to provide daylight and fresh air to all users, unique methods of

construction, virtual elimination of waste, a symbiotic relationship between the

structure and the materials needed to build it, and the reuse or return to the earth

of the materials after their use. These elements were the very foundation of the

architectural and planning profession, grounded in sustainable principles before

they were called such. Even though regional and urban design is the scale that will

have the greatest impact on sustainability, it is the architecture, the daily experience,

that provides the best direct opportunity for the public to learn and embrace sus-

tainability.

The Site: Challenges and Opportunities

The site is more than an address. It is the sum total of the economic, environmental,

and social attributes of its location. An in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the

site will help determine the following:

䊏

Optimum form and size of the building footprint

䊏

The building’s orientation

䊏

The glazing location, orientation, and size necessary for natural and passive

daylight

䊏

The glazing location for heat gain or to reduce heat gain

䊏

Locations of openings for natural ventilation

Historically, architecture

created communities that

provided civic spaces for

economic opportunities,

cultural settings,

protection from the

elements, and security.

104 SUSTAINABLE DESIGN

䊏

Building materials and finishes appropriate to the impacts from the climate

and the weather

䊏

Landscape type, size, location, and variation

䊏

Low-maintenance strategy for the upkeep and operational costs of the

structure

The term place-based design refers to designs that include, integrate, and con-

nect the site’s natural characteristics and resources into the design. In sustainable

design, site means place—it includes all aspects of the region and microclimate. A

study and analysis of the site and regional environmental conditions, the ecology,

biology, geologic history, anthropology, and climate provide significant information

that informs architects and planners in their designing for sustainability.

A sustainable site analysis begins with study of the sun and its impact on the

region, the community, and the site. This impact includes its climate and ecological

niche and how the sun angle, intensity, and duration establish the bioclimate and

microclimate. Solar, soil, and water patterns and flows have been sustainable

resources on the site for many years; these are the free generators of the natural

character and form of the site. Working against those natural patterns is expensive,

requires significant mechanical intervention, and is, therefore, not sustainable. The

natural patterns and characteristics are unique to each region and site, and under-

standing and connecting to them will benefit the design.

The sustainable site analysis also includes the study and understanding of the

“next system larger.” The reasoning for this is as follows: The region has a biocli-

mate, a series of biological functions specific to its climate. The site’s bioclimate is

similar to the region’s, but the site has a specific microclimate unique to its location.

It is impacted by its surroundings: the soil, slope, precipitation, temperature, humid-

ity, air movement, and direction, as well as impacts from surrounding buildings. The

site, as the smaller scale of study, is impacted more significantly by changes such as

storms or fires or earthquakes. The region, however, has characteristics that will only

change with global changes. Although a warm-humid region may be severely

impacted by hurricanes, it will remain warm-humid, whereas coastal developments,

in the extreme global change case, may lose the land and need to move.

There are also considerable impacts from surroundings, such as prevailing winds

that can create different microclimates within 100 feet of one another or in urban

settings, when the reflective skin on a building face concentrates energy onto neigh-

boring buildings. This reflected light and heat energy is an annoyance to the resi-

dents of the neighboring buildings, as it changes the temperature within the spaces,

adds to cooling bills, and creates considerable glare. Every piece of architecture

changes the microclimate of its site and its neighbors’ site, sometimes requiring con-

siderable changes, associated costs, and potentially litigation.

The site and environmental analysis is three-dimensional. These dimensions are

illustrated and are called out as air shed, watershed, and geologic shed. A site is much

more than a surface on which to build; a look at the patterns of the site can provide

information on how resident forces shaped it over time. By observing and research-

THE SITE: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES 105

ing these patterns and forms, the designer can mimic these free-energy patterns and

include them in the building design. Sustainable design acknowledges these forces as

potential energy to power the building and makes a commitment to utilize them.

Site Design and Environmental Analysis

Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,

Rains from the sky a meteoric shower

Of facts . . . they lie unquestioned, uncombined.

Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill

Is daily spun; but there exists no loom

To weave it into fabric . . .

—Edna St. Vincent Millay

The sustainable designer’s process can be seen as a loom. This metaphorical loom is

the thinking process and the resulting solution that captures and connects the re-

newable resources. The loom links the facts of the site in a manner that preserves

and protects both site and building, creating uniqueness. In the twenty-first century,

energy scarcity and the transition to alternative energy sources is a prime design

parameter. Site design begins with the analysis of the site and environmental condi-

tions and integrates them into the program and design solution. Integrating the nat-

ural attributes of the site can reduce energy consumption considerably.

The natural resources of the site are the renewable energies and materials re-

siding on the site. Conceptually, a sustainable-design solution creates the form and

skin of the structure in a manner that captures, stores, and distributes the resident

energies. The simple capturing of these energies with the function and form of the

structure is basic to sustainable design. Sustainable design is an expression of under-

standing and connecting with the site and the environmental conditions, connecting

with the place.

Ecology has seasonal changes—it is dynamic. Some ecologies, like those in the

hurricane-prone states, have vegetative patterns that have adapted to this stress.

Inherent in the form and pattern of these ecological communities is the process of

morphing to the changing energy and dynamic existing conditions. An example in

architectural design would be to design architectural and planning forms and pat-

terns that change to reduce, redirect, and mitigate destructive wind forces. After the

recent hurricanes of Andrew, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, it is obvious that current

building locations and building forms illustrate that the construction industry has

learned little when it comes to designing for wind mitigation.

Postdisaster design and planning is an opportunity for local officials and design

professionals to create architectural and urban-planning patterns, where the very

form itself creates a more secure place. This approach not only provides for rebuild-

ing community but also expresses the very real connection to place and makes a dif-

106 SUSTAINABLE DESIGN

As illustrated in this

model by R. Knowles,

today’s architectural

challenges accommodate

large populations—both

new and existing—in

patterns that can

maximize the natural

energies resident to

the place.

SITE DESIGN AND ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS 107

ference to a community’s sense of security and well being. It is also an opportunity

to reconnect to sustainable patterns.

In his book Energy and Form, Ralph Knowles illustrated the design value of sun-

light on form. This is a powerful example of the potential value that sustainable

design has on form. The challenge to designers is what has been learned and how

that science can be applied to form. H. G. Wells stated the lost opportunity this way:

“Civilization is always a race between learning and disaster.”

On August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew, carrying winds between 145 and 200

miles per hour, reached landfall. South Florida, in less than three hours, was changed

for all time. The 33 communities that were damaged or destroyed incurred over $30

billion in structural and building damage, and 250,000 people were displaced. Out of

the ruin there stood, for no readily apparent reason, structures minimally damaged,

while others next door were completely destroyed. There is evidence that the reason

for this lies within the mitigating aspects inherent in some architectural and urban

planning patterns. This leads to the question: Can form itself mitigate wind damage?

Form is knowledge expressed. The form of an object evolves from the knowledge

and technology that the designer possesses when the design process starts. When

the designer has new knowledge, the design process changes and change in the form

is the result. Aerodynamics affords an excellent example. In the last ten years the

design process has incorporated new criteria and new tools, along with computer

As illustrated by Olgyay, wind energy acts on forms in varying ways.

108 SUSTAINABLE DESIGN

analysis, to create designs that reduce wind resistance. This knowledge has changed

the designer’s creative baseline, and this change has resulted in new, more efficient

forms in planes, trains, and automobiles.

Using form to mitigate wind damage is not a new or untested idea. In Mikonos,

Greece, gales from the sea often blow from 50 to 75 miles per hour, yet one can

walk 20 feet inside the town and light a match. What is happening here is that the

form itself is acting as a labyrinth, creating a back force—dampening the wind veloc-

ity and mitigating its force. In comparison, Chicago, where the buildings tend to

reinforce and concentrate the winds, requires chains to assist pedestrians so that

they will not be blown into the street. Architectural and urban form can be designed

to baffle the wind forces and reduce wind damage—something known in Mikonos

for hundreds of years and missed in Chicago, Florida, and the Gulf states.

A house in south Florida was in the west fringe of Hurricane Andrew and sus-

tained 100-plus-mile-per-hour winds. A courtyard wall, creating the entry space,

Sustainable architectural and urban patterns can mitigate wind forces, protecting the structures of home and community.

SITE DESIGN AND ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS 109

This site plan responds

to solar and wind

orientation to create

usable spaces and protect

the structure.

110 SUSTAINABLE DESIGN

Courtyards baffle the

winds, create family

spaces, and mitigate

wind damage.

SITE DESIGN AND ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS 111