A Carbon Neutral

Super Crit Fall 2007

This fall as Clemson Architecture program has subscribed to the 2010 Imperative, Super Crit will focus on the 2030 Challenge goals as each campus can engage them. The event will take place on Wednesday, August 22 - Monday 27. Participants will include Graham Farmer from the University of Nottingham and Merritt Bucholz from Bucholz McEvoy, Dublin. Download event poster.

A Carbon Neutral: Clemson

Carbon neutral equates to the commonly used term "Net Zero Carbon" where absorption of carbon is equal to or greater than emission. Of 4 sub classifications, Net Zero Site Energy is generally what architects try to achieve. The concept measures energy consumption within the boundaries of the building's site, ignoring whether the utility source is coal or wind.

Progression of project (4 day time frame)

Wednesday Introduction, Key lecture (guest), Kick off project.

Project is to be introduced in studio. Work is assigned to be brought in on Friday.

Friday Studio reviews work from Thursday and in class studio Work begins in earnest,

Saturday and Sunday workdays,

Monday Post all work

All sections of Undergraduate and Graduate to participate

Work to be undertaken in sections but possibly work together in large space

3 alternative project directions are offered for the Clemson Campus. Studio Professors may elect one of these alternatives for their studio or they can pursue all three with small teams within the studio. Sketch problem definitions have been left intentionally open so that individual studios can write their own problem around the framework provided. Other campus centers will develop site specific proposals oriented to their particular conditions and focus.

Sketch for Clemson Campus projects

Proposals for the projects are to be executed in visual terms as an architectural solution. Ideas should go beyond Leeds criteria in that dependency on credits that do not impact the actual design of the building are not to be solely depended on. This is a design-oriented exercise and as such its interests are centered on ways that the architecture can be formed and affected by management of natural forces. 3 Scales of design proposals are offered

Urban - Working on a campus / community wide scale

The campus and Clemson community at large are to be redesigned as an urban response to carbon consumption. The base assumption in this proposal is that automobiles would be eliminated from the campus and the town. This naturally invokes the need to re cast the relationship between the campus and the spreading suburban habitation patterns surrounding it. In keeping with the consideration of land intensive uses and its implied transportation implications, the animal husbandry programs should be enjoined in the overall critique. Finally, the adjacent body of water as an energy and transportation resource could be engaged.

Local - Building Scale

The proposal consists of a re-evaluation and expansion of Lee Hall. This is to be carried out as an insertion of new program into the existing building body and overarching critique. Specifically, students are to design and integrate a Gallery/ Review space for architecture, on the scale of the existing Gallery while re-inventing Lee Hall's overall environmental footprint. The exercise should be conceived in response to carbon neutral strategies with the use & mediation of light as a primary focus.

Prosthetic scale: Energy Generation

Design and integrated into Lee Hall an energy-generating device that harnesses natural forces and converts this energy into consumable forms. As an architectural apparatus this construction should go well beyond simple towers with a set of blades. An example of an apparatus that sits between an architecture and simple machinery/ technology is the Windmill structure of the renaissance epoch. This symbiotic apparatus captured wind forces and converted them into food processing tools. It contained architectural space and in responding to forces, the entire building re-orients itself. The work of Behnisch Partners also offers examples of technological devices (photovoltaic) supported by an architectural apparatus to extend their minimal spatial presence.

5 definitions of Sustainability

1. Buildings and environments that help to establish an integrated relationship with nature.

2. Buildings and environments that preserve and / or improve local ecosystems and which focus on long-term planning and wider geography.

3. Building and environments that result from civic action in which environmental quality, understood both physically and socially, is essential.

4. Buildings that satisfy a series of benchmarks ( i.e. LEED) defined by experts, interested parties, and politicians.

5. Buildings and environments that save and / or conserve energy and satisfy our real and perceived needs.

Energy Management

Day lighting

Shading

Operable glazing

Screen walls

Glazing ratio and type

Passive heating and cooling systems

Geo thermal heating and cooling systems

Green Roofs

Orientation, sun exposure and use of winds

Energy Storage (Insulation, Mass walls )

Domestic Water heating

Centralized plant systems

Impact on environment

Consumption and replacement of natural resources with Water as high priority

Effect of on ground water recharge and run off

Displacement and compensation of green space

Disturbance of ecosystems

Interfaces to buildings and environment

Transportation system (vehicular, water routes, mass, low impact technologies)

Pedestrian connections

Infrastructure / support systems

Mediation / recycling of waste and emissions

Energy generation

Dependence on outside energy sources

Use of non-polluting sources (wind, wave action, thermal, solar, compost)