Page 35 - October 2015 Green Builder Magazine

>>> Functional FORMS

Team: Jon Lund, Narek Mirzaei and Luis Sabater Musa, University of Cincinnati
THE UNIVERSITY OF Cincinnati team was the only
one that identified where the highest energy usage 30 percent and promote social interaction. They also made many of
comes from in this type of development and then the right passive moves to reduce energy loads first before digging
actually rethought spatial adjacency and programmatic into active systems. Their approach expressed well the perFORM
competition’s emphasis on building performance: First create

requirements to reduce that energy footprint. For a super-efficient envelope, understand what the domestic loads

example, this team carefully studied the lighting and domestic hot are and work to lower them, and then consider onsite renewable

water energy use of their design and then provided shared kitchen, energy generation. The team did all this while also respecting the

dining and laundry as a way to both reduce energy consumption by site and employing simple, elegant proportions for its buildings.

Solar Gain. The three bars are south Shading and Beauty. Sliding panels, which Embodied Energy. The
facing and step down, so that each can be manually operated, protect the building is designed with
building can receive the southern building from unwanted summer solar gain. cross-laminated timber (CLT)
sunlight. The roof angle responds to the These panels give the user the capability to system construction. Among
latitude, maximizing the energy efficiency alter the space; as a result, the building the material’s many
of the solar panels throughout the year. changes across the seasons. environmental benefits, it has
a positive CO2 balance and is
locally sourced.