The first two pages of Addington’s article suggest that it takes a significant catalyst to encourage designers to change the function of building envelope. In the early 19th century, apertures were made in the building envelopes to allow for outside air to come inside. The next catalyst was the flu epidemic in the late 19th century which led to two things. First the openings were closed and the cross ventilation ceased. Second, HVAC systems were installed. By the end of the 20th century the desired effect of these systems was to deliver interior climate “conditions that one would not notices” (14). The oil embargo of 1973 is the next catalyst of change in the design of building envelopes. The price of fuel went up and the consistency of HVAC was sacrificed to save money. I would argue, and Addington would agree, that the most recent catalyst is upon us now. There is a decreasing supply of fossil fuels and an increasing awareness of climate change due to the over-consumption of these fossil fuels (Addington 13-14). Designs must now come to rely more on their design and less on the technology that can be incorporated into them.
Among other techniques, one of Dahl’s suggested remedies for poor building envelope design is thermal massing. New designs should focus on utilizing as few resources as possible to create the most significant outcome. Thermal massing requires large amounts of resources to be ‘massed’ together to absorb heat from the sun throughout the day, store it, and slowly release it at night when the temperatures drop. At present, in order to acquire enough stone, brick, or concrete, large quantities of resources would need to be removed from the environment. This would mean further altering natural landscapes, and not to mention disturbing if not destroying entire ecosystems. Thermal massing is not the only technique that utilizes excessive resources to replace fossil fuel consumption. Lechner used the example of a geodesic dome to create a micro-climate around structure built in inhospitable climates (58). This technique encourages the concept of using more materials and resources. This will only contribute to the over-consumption of resources for use as building materials.
There are ways to implement passive heating/cooling techniques that do not overuse resources. In the case of thermal massing, this could be done by circulating water instead of using stone. In last weeks in class assignment, my group found a YouTube video of a man who had created his own solar furnace using soda cans. While he used air to store the heat, similar devices can and are made using water. In addition to using the sun to assist the building envelope’s ability to “ameliorate those extreme conditions that [are] beyond the human body’s ability for adaptation” (Addington 13), geothermal energy can be used in many of the same ways. Water can be pumped underground to where the temperature is constant year-round. That water can then circulate throughout the house warming or cooling the interior (Dahl 60). Water is an ideal substance to use for storing energy, and it is used in buildings in many of the same ways that it functions in our own bodies. Just as we sweat in order to use the process of evaporation to cool our skin, buildings can use evaporative cooling, in the form of dripping water, small bodies of water, or fountains to cool off the surrounding area 62).
Another function of the body is to utilize clothing as a means of regulating its temperature. The same concept can be used on buildings. In the section titled zone division “the combination of heavy and light materials can be optimized by dividing the building into thermal zones with different choices of material and functionality depending on the seasons” (Dahl 66), creating different micro-climates within the interior. Instead of maintaining a constant interior temperature there can be “a warm kitchen, cool bedroom, and passage and living rooms that [can be] heated on special occasions” (66). Addington’s concept of using the body’s own heat as a means of regulating interior temperature (16) can make this idea of micro-climates more effective.
I used this concept in a project I completed earlier this semester in Karolin Moellmann’s Hybrid studio. In short, the design of the building used two adjacent buildings in Berlin to serve as two of the exterior walls of its building envelope, minimizing necessary building materials. The interior was designed in such a way that inclines, ramps, and stairs could be used to encourage vertical (opposed to lateral) movement between rooms/spaces. For instance, in order to get from the lobby to the kitchen, one had to walk up a few flights of stairs, into their unit, and back down a flight of stairs. Starting from the ground floor the level of activity increased so that by the time one reached the top floor the space would be considerably warmer.
Mimicking the human body’s processes in building envelope design is an effective way to decrease resource and fossil fuel consumption while still maintaining a protective form of ‘environmental mediation’.
Systems, Sites, and Buildings 