11th EAEA Envisioning Architecture: Design, Evaluation, Communication Conference in 2013

Track 1 | Visualizing Sustainability - Making the invisible visible

A unified tool to design and define Architectural Sustainability 2.0

ABSTRACT

Sustainability is moving from its phase 1.0 to 2.0. There is a shift in the paradigms of sustainable design that can be recorded in the last five years. Specifically, there is a shift from a rather narrow focus on energy to a broader view of sustainability and from a technical to a qualitative and restorative approach. In addition to the classic discussion of natural flows such as wind, sun, heat, light, water, there are other quantifiable flows that are becoming key in sustainable design. In addition, there are soft and intangible aspects of sustainable design such as users’ flows, views, relationships between human and building scales, democracy, habitat exchange, rights to nature, and biophilia that need to become part of the sustainability school of though. As of yet, the consideration of such factors has not been promoted (or just partially promoted) by certification systems such as LEED, BREEAM or DGNB. Given such scenario, there is a need for simple and visual tools that support an integral view of sustainable priorities on a technical level as well as operate as a set of core values. Such tools should be aimed at engaging design teams and the broader AEC industry in the present discussion that is necessary to truly understand how to solve sustainable design. The toolkit proposed here is meant to support conceptual design as well as the analysis of existing buildings. The issue of redefining the targets of sustainability in architecture was the focus of a two-week course held at the Royal Danish Academy with final-year bachelor students. 45 Danish case studies of so-claimed green design were analyzed with on-site visits, interviews of occupants and colloquiums with the architect with the goal of understanding how the buildings perform according to a wider definition of sustainability. Students have to analyze the process, products, and principles of sustainability by using a userfriendly and sketch-based toolkit: a sustainable design storytelling, a multiscale matrix, based on the hard and soft aspects of sustainability, and an environmental section. The storytelling is a powerful time-based tool that graphically defines the “moments” that determine the sustainable design. The matrix, inspired by the Living Building Challenge standard, allows to both plan and assess the identification of sustainable design ideals inspiring project teams to reach decisions based on restorative principles. Asymmetries in the matrix show strengths and weaknesses of a project according to a holistic definition of sustainability. Finally, the environmental section visually and creatively shows the invisible flows of sustainability that go beyond the classic sections used in architectural practices to represent sustainability. They also demonstrate where quantitative and qualitative flows of sustainability overlap, thereby illustrating how design engages users and nature at the local and the global scale. Overall, the application of the toolkit to the Danish context aids to define trends in the field of green buildings and identify cases of missed opportunities of sustainability applications, which are valuable in directing future designs. As a result, the research offers a unified representation tool-kit that can be used by students and professionals in architecture in order to develop, communicate, anticipate and improve design of existing buildings toward a thoughtful sustainable design.

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AUTHOR

Emanuele Naboni

Institute of Architectural Technology, School of Architecture, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark

Dr. Emanuele Naboni is Associate Professor in Sustainability at the School of Architecture of the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen. He was a researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, visiting scholar at CBE of UC Berkeley and Visiting Teacher Architectural Association in London. He was for few years sustainable design specialist at the 'Performance Design Studio' of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP in san Francisco and consultant for Autodesk's green tools development. He consults foremost architectural offices with his office e3Lab (www.e3lab.org) proposing the implementation of sustainable agendas and supporting with simulations the development of high performances cities, buildings and technologies. He is author of several publications related to sustainable architecture, including a co-authored book 'Green Buildings Pay' for Routledge with Brian Edwards (2012).

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