Not one of mine, credit - Whatcom Museum

Small cities deserve well-designed civic buildings and museums. This is one, designed by the accomplished Seattle firm Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects (soon to be renamed Olson  Kundig Architects), whose body of work is well known throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The building is so nick-named for the 180 foot long double glazed wall which runs like a spine through the entire project and partially defines an outdoor court. The official purpose, at least currently, is the Art and Children’s Museum of the larger organization, the Whatcom Museum. The History Museum will continue to function in the old City Hall building, which is a historic landmark in itself. The new building will be the first museum in Washington State to be built to LEED Silver standards. Here’s the official announcement from the city, which also contains an interesting time lapse video of the construction.

The building shell went up very fast with mostly precast concrete insulated panels. These have a very stone like quality about them which is interesting in itself. The  storefront details are well done, but the double curtainwall Lightcatcher steals the show. I definitely recommend a visit to see the building, and of course the artwork inside. The current exhibits are actually very interesting and feature some prominent artists from around the globe.

I attended the grand opening last weekend among great fanfare. Attendance was free, thanks to a local bank as the event’s sponsor. My only complaints were that on opening day, the upstairs atrium gallery was a little too narrow for the crowds trying to weave their way to the main exhibits. Ironically, the photographs displayed on that wall were of the area’s logging history. Perhaps it was the curator’s intent to create a human log-jam, creating an interactive exhibit. Second, that upstairs level really seems like a programmatic mish-mash. It is a small building, but  seemingly unrelated rooms like an exhibit space and the children’s activity room were next to the director’s glass jewel box of an office, which couldn’t have had more Design Within Reach furnishings if it had been the company’s 1st Ave showroom in Seattle. Lastly, and this isn’t the building’s fault by any means, I was dissapointed that the roof garden over the lobby was not accessible. There are patio blocks and seating out there as well as an informational sign explaining the virtues of the living roof and rainwater collection. I guess I’ll read it another time.

I took a few photos of the atrium, and exterior. The lobby was too full of people to see much, but is a well-designed arrival space. Since it was dusk, these are a little grainy. Maybe it’s time for a new camera, or  should open the manual for once.  FYI: No photographs are allowed in the exhibit spaces, as is typical in most museums. Enjoy.

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• Nov 13 @ 10AM PST – Integrating: Revit with Ecotect – 2 hours
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Integrating: Revit with Ecotect

Looking for ways to integrate sustainable design into your current workflow, or simply a way to work smarter? Perform analysis of building designs when it has the most potential rewards, during conceptual design. Seating is limited, so sign up today.

Topics Covered:

• Using Revit conceptual models
• Preparing a Revit project model
• Export options for gbXML
• Compelling reasons for exporting to DXF
• Optimum Ecotect import settings
• Considering site and weather conditions
• Applying parametric rules to Ecotect objects
• Performing early daylight and thermal analysis
• Iterative design and optioning

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Secrets of: Revit Conceptual Massing

Revit Architecture 2010 has some very powerful conceptual design tools, but for those migrating from earlier versions of the software using these new tools can be daunting at first. If you want to understand how to create flexible, parametric building forms this class is for you. We will cover the essentials of the conceptual mass editing environment, as well as how to create sophisticated organic forms. Seating is limited, so sign up today.

Topics Covered:

• The Conceptual Design environment
• The Importance of building jigs
• Pros and Cons of choosing a modeling method
• Working with legacy massing objects
• From box to organic form
• Subtleties of the environment
• Surface rationalization
• Creating and extending panel families
• Extracting data for design analysis

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Other News:

Additionally, full course sample agendas are now released for Revit Architecture 2010 and Ecotect Analysis 2010. For more information visit the Training page.

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OK, so it’s not really a house, but perhaps a really good house wine. Every once in a while you find a very intriguing use of technology in architecture schools. Lately, the amount of good work has been not scarce. In this example, however there is evidence of biomimicry, parametric scripting, simple rendering using ambient occlusion, and using Ecotect to present sustainable analysis data in very compelling and rich ways. Bravo Andrea!

Click through to have a taste of Italy:

s h i f t: Digital refining: new winery for “Consorzio Vini Tipici di San Marino” _[boards].

A well deserved kudos to all who participated in the Solar Decathlon is in order. This year’s entries have a level of sophistication and attention to detail that should inform the industry and heat up the debate on energy independence.

The Refract house, winner of the Architecture category is such a well-done concept. Not only does it bend producing more roof area concentrating on the best sun exposure, but creates and extends living space to the outdoors. From the photographs it is obvious that, while only 800 s.f., there is a visual separation form the adjacent spaces as the building form turns the corner.

An overview of the design process and a well-documented list of the features employed can be found on the official page below. It’s unclear what digital design tools were used in creating this project. Anyone that can provide some clues, you are welcome to add a comment to the post. The use of the Building Dashboard for monitoring energy consumption and production is especially interesting, since I covered this way back in February of 2007.

from ArchDaily: CCA + SCU win 2009 Solar Decathlon, Architecture Contest | ArchDaily.

the official page: http://www.refracthouse.com

For those not familiar with Autodesk Ecotect: It is an early building performance and design analysis tool for use by architects and designers. Its primary purpose is to aid in the iterative design process and gain valuable early insight in to cost and performance measures of buildings, and can greatly contribute toward reaching energy efficiency and sustainability goals. Ecotect is very graphical in nature, and thus provides those sexy images that help sell complex ideas to the client while working with a broad suite of environmental analysis tools. Ecotect plays somewhat well with others, as it can import files from SketchUP, Revit, and other 3D CAD and BIM applications using the gbXML file format, and can also export data to many precise engineering tools such as EQuest, Radiance and EnergyPlus.

Some folks joined the meeting as an exploration of available technologies, and are studying their options for sustainable design tools. Others, approximately 25%, were current Ecotect users and expressed a desire to share experiences and best practices to take back an implement in their work.

A presentation and model sharing was given by Teresa Burrelsman of Callison, discussing the need for quick design simulation during a schematic design for a new tower in the city of Riyadh, and showing how Ecotect was used to determine energy cost savings and occupant comfort (especially reducing glare) by various schemes using shading devices. There was some discussion of these quick, down and dirty, ‘shoebox models’ and how invaluable they can be to drive design iteration.

Olivier Pennetier of Symphysis, a leading regional Ecotect consultant,  joined by phone from his office in San Francisco and offered advice on modeling practices, as well as providing food for thought on how the community can begin to share information learned from the informal conversations these types of meetings generate.

Based on those in attendance, it was determined that the next meeting will take place on the second monday of the month, July 13th. The location is still to be determined. If you would like to learn more, please feel free to add to the discussion on this post. As more information on the next meeting becomes available, I will provide an update here.

Perhaps a good reason to start pushing for software vendors to get animation of building components into their BIM or CAD applications, besides the cool factor, is this notion of biomimicry. Autodesk has formed a mini-web dedicated to the topic, which seems to have slipped by unnoticed. The concept is wonderful. Why not use nature as inpiration to build buildings that add to, rather than take away from their environment. Is sustainability simply just getting to a balance on the tipping point to success or failure? What has been gnawing away at the gut of BIM is the ability to design and simulate the design features in-place. It’s no fun to pull the design into Max and start adding “ik” controls just to understand the impact of an operable feature. Concurrent design and analysis becomes critical in the AEC world as designers become more sophisticated about the questions they ask their software to answer. Much like an industrial designer can test out moving parts of a machine with Inventor, architects should have the same level of sophistation in their own tools. Perhaps we are soo good at borrowing without complaint, that we are a good target for ‘upselling’. Don’t give us your laundry list of things that might do the job, let’s get the tools to do what we want internally, to avoid the asynchronous nature of exporting and importing peices and parts of a moving puzzle. Oh, yeah… so back to our little green, er red house.

So here, I present the house of the week – yes, it’s the same view as above. Then where did all that glass go? Why, it’s underneath the sliding roof form. Cool. Why? Be patient, and I’ll explain.

While not necessarily an example of biomimicry, this house certainly has the ability to react to it’s environment. When the living room is too sunny, slide some shade over the patio, change the view… it opens up some very interesting possibilities. Click through to see the whole progression.

Sliding House by dRMM – via Dezeen.

zHome concept image

Recently, I attended a presentation by Brad Liljequist, the project manager for the zHome project. His talk, part of the Sustainable Connections series of conferences in Bellingham, WA, was a very interesting discovery showcasing the efforts of a complex and intriguing project, right in my own region. Located in the Issaquah Highlands, just East of Seattle, WA, this project is aiming at becoming one of the first zero net energy affordable residential projects to be built.

Yes, there actually is sun in Seattle, and outside of the darkest winter months, is plentiful enough for energy production. If everything goes as planned, construction should begin soon. Can’t wait for the availability of site visits. If you live in the area, go the the website and sign up for the email newsletter. I’ll certainly be following this more closely over the course of construction.

There’s plenty of other wonderful topics covered on this sustainable design dedicated site:

HOK GREEN BIM

As part of the History Channel’s Future Cities Competition, here’s a sneak peak at the participants in  San Francisco.

Video: Bay Area architecture firms compete for most realistic and sustainable vision – CNET News.com

It makes one wonder how we quantify all the claims of sustainability in design.  I’ll explore a new toolkit by IES, released for Revit Architecture in a later post that may help.

I first learned about this while reading the latest issue of Wired. Are you aware of the amount of energy you are using right now? Now, not calories–energy that your home or office is consuming, in real time, can be calculated with a product from Lucid Design Group. It’s called the Building Dashboard™. Once sensors are placed in the building, you can see the data in a very simple to understand widget that sits on your computer’s desktop.