ARCH4822 - Theory II - OliverH

  It is clear to the industry and the scientific community that buildings take a large part of the overall carbon emission, accelerating climate change. According to the UN IPCC reports, buildings are responsible for around 40% of all energy use globally. 80% of which is linked to the building's operational phase(cooling, heating, lighting, etc). Today, the industry has the technology to cut down on operational energy use in a major way simply through highly efficient building systems and methods. Probably not surprisingly, better technology and more efficient products and methods also have a higher cost. For decades, homeowners and developers are left with the choice of paying more initial costs as an investment into better savings on energy use down the road; or they can instead build it cheaply and accept the price on the energy bills, as well as the consequences for carbon emissions. The image above illustrates a comparison of thermal images of a passive house(on the left) and ...

The materials of the past can become the materials of the future: People, and most specifically designers tend to forget the materials and practices that were used before the industrial revolution. Why do we need to think about anything when we have steel, concrete, and glass? Building materials such as mud in the form of rammed earth and timber have been used for millennia. With their rebirth and new explorations of materials, we can move back towards sustainability and decrease humanity's enormous footprint on the planet. The materials above from the upper left corner moving clockwise go as follows: felt, sawn timber, rammed earth, tree trunks, hemp.  Points for Class Discussion: For decades now, AIA guidelines and building codes have been defining the architecture, fading away creativity and the notion of resiliency and sustainability. The guidelines and minimum codes derive from a socio-political and economic place, ignoring the relationship to earth and nature. Dematerializati...

  Architecture and Labor: a collage response to the TEDx Talk by Peggy Deamer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joD3ksS3FjQ      The above collage compares conventional architectural practices from the 20th century to the progressed practices of the 21st century. "Design isn't work"(Peggy Deamer). The 20th century setup looks at the traditional building method, where the owner has a separate contractual relationship with both the architect and the contractor. The architect spends most of his time researching and designing to meet the requirements of the project while staying within budget. However, most of that work will remain visible to the owner and contractor, and as a product of basic services, the architect will provide a set of drawings(manuals) of the building to the owner. The owner then distributes those documents to the contractor to use as the guide for construction. In this scenario, almost all the design is done by the architects, which is undervalued bec...

Collage of The Three Ecologies: This collage I produced in Photoshop is a representation of how we as humans are responsible for burning our own planet down. The image is trying to illustrate the steps in society that essentially closes in a circle. Starting on the bottom left, the already experienced destruction (in the form of wildfires in this case) is risking to spread further and further, driving communities around it to run, protest and fight to make a change. But how do you make a change? Of course through the same capitalistic system that is responsible for Climate Change in the first place. People in the bottom right are waiting for their turn for the ladder that would take them up the steps of the hierarchy that would gain them the power and tools to fight the issues. But by the time they get there they will have a taste for success and a smell for money. After that, those issues won't be as urgent for them anymore, and rather solving them, they will join their predecesso...