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Posts by dylanchavez

May 26

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Energy Boost – Simple Early Analysis

Most people will agree that the earlier in the design process the easier it is to incorporate sustainable elements. Daylight is probably the prime example of this situation: it is easy to add glazing in the beginning, but much harder to find extra space/money for glazing later in the design process.  The difficult question to answer is how much glazing do I need to have when I start? And, more importantly, how can I figure out how much I need quickly?

While there are various methods to determine the amount of glazing to provide daylighting, such as digital and physical modeling, applying simple equations early may be the most effective to develop a quick starting point. One equation that is particularly effective is the Daylight Factor Equation.

GSF = DF/FA * GO * ADJ * 100%

  • GSF = Glazing Square Footage
  • DF = Daylight Factor  (Should be based on occupancy requirements)
  • GO = Glazing orientation (0.2 for vertical glazing)
  • ADJ = Adjustment factors (mullions, visible transmission, dirt.  0.5 is a good starting point,)

A good starting point for the DF is 2%.  For reference DF is defined at the ratio between light level outside and the light level inside. For example if the light level outside was 1000 f.c. at 2% the daylight factor inside would be 20 f.c.

But you say “unlike you, I don’t like math.”  That’s ok, just create a simple model in Revit and let schedules do the math for you! I have created a schedule that can be applied to simple Revit models and auto generate the amount of glazing that is a good starting point. The schedule will show you the glazing you have and the glazing you should have on a room by room basis.  See images below.

Applying simple equations is a starting point that helps later in the process when more detailed modeling is applied as the design develops.

If your interested in working with these schedules, equation, or have other questions about this early analysis feel free to leave comments!

May 18

TLCD sponsors the Sustainable Enterprise Conference

The Sustainable Enterprise Conference was one of the better Friday the 13th events in recent memory. In the first year of sponsoring this event, and with a turnout of over 400 attendees, we had a wonderful opportunity to share ideas on nurturing our planet and our communities. We got to chat with a diverse cross-section of business owners, educators, government officials, entrepreneurs, students, and environmental advocates.

Topics ranging from economic drivers, transportation, green energy, sustainable agriculture, and community education were presented with insight and enthusiasm. The realities of the environmental challenges facing us were paired with a myriad of innovative solutions currently in use and those that will inspire us in the future. Although the topics were diverse, one recurring theme that presented itself was the need to constantly re-examine our assumptions rather than simply continue along business as usual.

TLCD’s booth highlighted 2 recently completed local projects – the DeTurk Round Barn and the City of Santa Rosa’s Utilities Facility. Both projects are great examples of TLCD’s integration of sustainability features which are a fundamental part of our design process on every project. Recently published white papers on High-Performance Mechanical Systems, Evidence-based Design, and Displacement Ventilation were also displayed. We also had fun encouraging participation in our (free) raffle for a gift certificate box of organic produce.

Dec 2

What Happens in Vegas …

…will slowly filter into the HealthCare Studio and diffuse into the rest of the office.

Between Nov. 13-16 (yes writing this blog post took a while) Jamie and I attended the Health Care Design 2010 Conference in Las Vegas.  For those who have never heard of the Health Care Design Conference it is an annual conference of Health Care Designers, Facility Managers, and Health Care Providers that focus on the research and progress of design in the health care environment, particularly evidence based design. 

The 4 day event gave us the opportunity to be part of unique discussions on topics ranging from “Codes and Standards: How they Affect the Design of Patient Rooms” to the “Light Health and Energy Efficiency”.  In general the presentation focused on presenting research finding and lessons learned from around the world. Many of the topics I was involved in focused on Energy Efficiency in the Health Care environment and the design and theory of design of psychiatric facilities. In terms of the design of psychiatric facilities some of the most interesting discussion occurred around the difference in how risk management affect design in the US vs facilities abroad. US facilities tend to be designed in a very risk averse manner where the concern is placed on preventing every possible method of damage to both the facility and patient where as many of the facilities shown outside of the US exhibit less emphasis on preventing incidents and more focused on the design providing a healing environment.  To paraphrase on of the presenter (Stefan Lundin of White Arkiteker AB)  ‘we should design for the 95% percent of the time good things happen not the 5% of the time bad things happen. Because it is that 95% of the time that good design can help patients in these facilities.’  As side note another great psychiatric project to look at by BIG + JD is the Helsingor Psychiatric Facility. 

If anyone is interested in learning more about the lectures and discussions that were attended please let me know, in many cases we have digital versions of the presentations.

Additionally Jaime and I were also able to tour two different healthcare facilities in Las Vegas, the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health (by Gehry) and the Department of Veteran Affairs Las Vegas Medical Center.  Images of both of these facilities as well as images of Las Vegas will be available on the TLCD flickr account soon.  Although if you itching to see images of the Lou Ruvo Center along with a scattering of other images from Vegas you can see them now here.

On a Vegas note I was struck by Daniel Libeskind’s  new building ‘Crystals’ in City Center.  Of all the buildings on the Vegas Strip this one was probably the most well executed and cleanly detailed. The interesting part was that even given the angularity and organized chaos in the space it was one of the most calming spaces in Vegas to be in.  There are some additional photographs of the space I took in the same set of images linked to earlier (towards the bottom).

Nov 23

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The Beauty and Desolation of Detroit

As many people may be aware the city of Detroit has admittedly seen better days.  To give an example the current population about 40% of its postwar peak.  This has resulted in what can be bluntly put as an excess of building stock, much of it in decay.  While it’s not something we think about very often the slow decay of buildings has a strange surrealism and beauty to it, this has been captured by various photographers in Detroit recently particularly well by the these photographers (see links below).

http://www.marchandmeffre.com/detroit/index.html
http://seanhemmerle.com/ (Look at the Rust Belt under PROJ)

Photograph by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. http://www.marchandmeffre.com/

Feb 5

Artist Open Studios – Lucky 10

SOFA

For those of you looking for something to do on Saturday, the South A Arts Alliance will be celebrating the Chinese New Year with LUCKY 10. Essentially the studios in the area of South A and Sebastopol Ave, will be open for visiting. 

LUCKY 10: Smallworks
Saturday, February 6, 2010
5 to 8pm
The entire A Street Arts Block celebrates the Chinese New Year by making smallworks in each studio & gallery.

Jan 27

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High Performance Wine Weds Series

If you missed the High Performance Wine Wednesday Series the slides are available by clicking on the graphic above.

Summary of January Presentation : Introduction of the monthly presentation style and high performance.

This series of Wine Weds presentation will be conducted once a month and focus on a different topic each month.  Each presentation will present three levels of information; Research, Object, and Precedent.  Research will work to introduce the theory behind a topic and demystify confusing aspects.  Object will introduce a object that is related to the topic introduced and described by research. Precedent will detail a building that incorporates a design that use the topic.

At the end of each presentation, the presentation will be posted on the blog and on the new High Performance wall for further review.  The different presentation media types (voice, print, and digital) are part of a broader effort by the High Performance Team to distribute information.

We will always welcome comments and questions about any aspect of the presentation.  We feel the best forum for these questions is the comment section of this blog so that everyone can be part of the discussion, so please post.

-HP Team

Jan 26

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Street Lights

I was surfing around on the City of Santa Rosa website and ran across this interesting information, Santa Rosa along with PG&E has set up a number of energy-efficient demonstrative street light fixtures (LED and Induction) to compare to the current high pressure sodium lights.  It gives us all the opportunity to see these technologies in use next to each other, which is nice.

There are significant energy savings (more than 50%) for either LED or Induction when compared to high pressure sodium, but there are some higher inital product cost.  There is more info on the city website, including the demostration intersection for those who are interested.

http://ci.santa-rosa.ca.us/departments/publicworks/streetlightreduction/Pages/StreetLightingDemonstration.aspx

Jan 14

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New Green Regulation Information

For those of you who haven’t heard there is a new Green Building Code coming in January 2011.  The State of California (at the direction of Gov. Schwarzenegger) has adopted a new mandatory Green Building Standards Code, named CALGREEN.

Essentially it appears to be a modified version of the current green building code but now applies to everything and sets more standards.  These standards include things like mandatory inspection of energy systems, reduction of waste consumption, separate water meters for interior and exterior uses, and of course new inspections and reviews by government agencies.

One key thing to note from the press release is that its seems this code will apply to all occupancy types – residential, commercial, hospitals and schools.  I am still searching for more information but wanted to get the word out. Below is a link to the press release and information.

http://gov.ca.gov/press-release/14186/

http://images.emaildirect.com/clients/govpressoffice847/GreenBuildingCodeOnepager.pdf

Jan 10

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Inexpensive 3D Printing

For those of you that have been wondering how can we get even more use out of digital models, let me introduce you to inexpensive 3d printing.  Makerbot has developed a kit for the construction of a 3d cnc machine that features a polymer melting head and plastic feeder, or a 3d plastic printer for under $1,000. This pretty much allows you to print anything with in the printer size constraints (4x4x6 inches) in 3d and we could easily print 3d models of our projects.

The software and method of preparing a 3d model file is relatively simple by saving as an .stl file and then translating in to Gcode.  I used Gcode at MIT when I (and other members of a team) made a model for an injection molding machine (see the yo-yo on my desk). The size of the objects are limited to 4x4x6 by the kit but the printer could be modified to handle larger objects. The printer and software accordingly is all open source, so if you wanted to build all the pieces instead of buying the kit it is possible.

Below is a link to a video of someone printing the statue of liberty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MidPMCnJif8

The kits from MakerBot are currently sold out, they had a booth at the CES this week and people like me who drool over things like this must have bought them all up, but if anyone else is interested in buying/sharing a kit in the future let me know.

Jan 4

The Energy Gamble

For those of you looking for something to watch I recently found a DVD (previously unopened) on the Healthcare bookshelf that is a good watch.  The Energy Gamble is a 56 min NOVA special on the State of California’s energy/sustainability path particularly AB32.  It’s a little heavy on the Governator but overall presents an interesting story that helps to explain where some of the greenhouse gas emissions cuts for AB32 are expected to come from and some of the issues facing the methods of cutting them.  It is primarily an overall view and I would have liked it to go a bit more in-depth in some cases but you can’t have everything in under and an hour.  It is worth watching in my mind. 

If you can’t find the DVD or if there is high demand you can also watch the movie online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/energy/

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