In
December of 2005 our project objectives changed, the following is the old Scope of the Design. If you wish
to see the the new and current Scope of the Design click here.
Milestone: Scope of the Design
This milestone was put in place to allow us to decide how in
depth to make this project, how in depth to design each individual system and
through what criteria we will make these decisions.
Define Sustainable, Green, and Energy Efficient
These definitions are in specific context
to our project and are put forth in this milestone to educate our audience as
well as inform them of our perception of these key terms in this sector of the
housing industry. These three terms are used often in everyday language, as
well as used in the context of building construction. There are no clearly
defined lines between the three terms, the definitions overlap. What we want to
do is investigate the three terms in order to try to distinguish between them so
our audience will understand the scope of our project.
Sustainable:
In order to build a home (house,
apartment building, housing complex) you need materials. In order for the home
to live out its potential it needs care and maintenance. Between building
materials and maintenance many consumable products need to be used. When we
talk about sustainability what we are really talking about is “Through-put
Sustainability.” This means from start to finish the entire process is
sustainable. All of the consumable products needed depend, either directly or
indirectly, on natural resources (things which only time and nature can
provide). From the time a tree is planted, grown, cut down, shipped to the
mill, milled, shipped to the distributor, brought to the construction site, and
finally put into place by the contractor it depends on natural resources. These
natural resources are: water, sunlight, nutrients in the ground, electricity
(which comes from a large variety of other natural resources), oil products
(for manufacturing, shipping, and construction)… the list goes on.
Through-put sustainability defines
that by the time a home reaches critical failure and needs to be demolished
everything that was needed to construct the home has been replenished. All of
the trees have been replaced by new ones, all of the resources needed to
transport have been replenished (including oil), and all of the electricity
needed for construction has been replenished. Think of every system of the home
(construction, maintenance, clean water, electricity, heating, waste stream ,
etc.) as being a cycle, and each one of these cycles is part of the life cycle
of the entire home. Most of our energy systems currently depend on oil, which
takes millions of years to be created. In order for the entire home to be
sustainable each system or cycle must be sustainable, which is nearly
impossible given the current limits of technology.
Green:
Green building construction at its
best would be sustainable construction. Green is a word that is often used
synonymously with sustainable or as a supplement to it. Green is often used
very loosely. Green just means that there was some consideration taken to
reduce the impact of the building on the environment. If the building had no
impact on the environment over the entire life cycle of the building, then the
building would be sustainable. People will often call a building green just
because it has a solar panel on top of it. But that certainly doesn’t make it
sustainable, especially if it is still getting 90% of its power from the grid,
or if the home is suitable for ten people but only four live in it.
It is also a word that can be all
encompassing, most of the time when someone refers to green design they are
referring to things that reduce the environmental impact of the home. In most
cases whenever energy is saved, the environment is saved by a proportional
amount. Here are two links which may help to further your understanding of
green products. GP
Link 1, GP
Link 2
Energy Efficient:
Efficiency is simply a ratio of the
energy achieved out of a system compared to the energy put into the system.
Energy efficient means getting the maximum energy and longevity out of the
resources being used. Comparison of different designs and different products is
crucial in achieving an energy efficient design. When an energy efficient
system, or home, is designed which uses a natural resource it is designed to
achieve the most energy out of the energy put in. The entire process of
constructing a home uses multiple natural resources at varying degrees of
consumption and at many different stages of the construction process.
If a system is sustainable then it is also 100% energy
efficient, because the energy needed, in the form of a natural resource, is replenished
by the time it is needed for consumption. For a home we will be specifically
dealing with designing the home and designing the systems needed for operation
of the home (HVAC, electricity, clean water and waste treatment). Energy
efficiency deals specifically with system design and allows for optimization in
more ways than one. For example, optimizing several parameters of the home,
such as ventilation, insulation and window selection, will allow us to gain the
highest efficiency of a particular heating system.
Why We Chose Energy Efficient
As can be determined from our
project title instead of designing a Sustainable or Green Housing Complex we
decided to design an Energy Efficient Housing Complex. As you can see from the
definitions of the three apparently synonymous adjectives we believe that they
each vary slightly. We feel that when a home is called a sustainable home this inaccurately
describes the current technology available for the entire construction process
of such a home. Granted there are probably a few exceptions to this brush
stroke. In most cases we feel that the terminology is misleading, exaggerated
or just not descriptive enough. Most homes which label themselves as
sustainable are certainly better than the alternative, but we feel that it is a
stretch to call them sustainable, but we also believe that they are a step in
the right direction.
That is what we are looking to do
with this project; we are looking to take a step in the right direction. We
feel that Energy Efficient is more descriptive of what we will actually be able
to achieve. For the most part what is currently available as a “sustainable”
(by other people’s standards) home is the equivalent of what we call Energy
Efficient.
Describing a home as a “green” home
really does not describe the home effectively. Saying that is a green home
could mean one of several things. It can mean that the designer took into
account several things in the design or that it investigated every aspect of
the home as to whether it could be designed green. Naturally as described prior
when a system of the home is designed green it is probably more efficient than
its predecessor. For example an old washing machine is not nearly as efficient
as a new green washing machine. Most green appliances are simply more energy
efficient, they use less of the resources required to perform their function
than the older or standard model.
All around what we want to achieve is to design a home
that will use less energy through out the entire life cycle of the home. From
the time the building is in the form of raw materials to the time that the
building needs to be demolished we want to use as little energy as possible.
Thus the home will in some ways be “green” and in some ways it will strive
towards “sustainable” but above all it will be energy efficient.
Scope of Design
The design of an entire housing
complex from top to bottom is a very substantial and expansive task. Entering
this project, we know we will be limited by three factors: there are only two
team members working on it, we only have one school year to complete it, and we
have little exposure to the vast field of architecture. Because of these
limitations we knew that we would be spending a lot of time learning many
things for the first time; we knew we would have to learn several programs and
educate ourselves about the inner workings of home design.
Thus we will not be able to go in
depth into all areas of home design for the reasons listed above. In order to
help us decide what depth to go we found out what the requirements were for the
university and the residents. After establishing the requirements we were able
to integrate them with our design initiatives and decide what processes will be
used to design each specific system. The systems and areas which we will be designing
as well as the scope of them are expressed below.
Size
There will be an assortment of
different size apartments in different sized buildings. The apartments
themselves will hold anywhere from two to six people. The number of apartments
per building will not be determinable until the milestone describing the
general layout has been met, on March 23rd. The reason for this
decision is we want to configure the apartments and buildings in a manner which
uses construction materials efficiently. The entire complex will be able to
house approximately 450 people.
Parking
Each apartment will be allotted two
parking spaces; they will have at least one parking space adjacent to their
building. The second space may be located elsewhere in University Park which
will not be more that 200 yards from their apartment. In addition to parking,
because of the Complex’s close location to the bike path each building will
have adequate bike rack space for each apartment.
Roads
There will be several paths to walk
around the community, these paths will be wide enough for emergency vehicles but
they will otherwise be restricted to pedestrian and bicycle traffic. The
primary vehicle roads will be around the perimeter of the complex to cut down
on noise and headlight disturbances at night.
Recreation
There will be a playground, paths
for walking and biking around the community, and a small universal athletic field
(baseball, soccer, football, etc.).
Community Center
A space will be left on the lot for
the community center which will also contain the laundry facility; the laundry
facility will be in the scope of this design. However, the rest of the design
of the community center will be beyond the scope of this year’s design.
Landscaping
There will be general landscaping
for energy efficient purposes such as shade. Plant species will be chosen
primarily to fulfill energy efficient requirements and secondarily for their
aesthetic value. For example, maple trees may be used to create shade in the
summer when they are full yet allow the sun to pass through when they are empty
in the winter months. Their will be adequate, yet energy efficient lighting of
pathways and roadways at night time for safety purposes. We are also discussing
the possibility of a community garden that could be run with the cooperation of
students, faculty and residents.
Grey Water Heat Recovery System
This will be the feasibility
analysis and possible design of a heat recovery system which uses the excess
heat from the grey water output stream of certain home appliances and
necessities (shower, dishwasher and laundry machines).
Electrical Appliances and Components
This will be selection of energy
efficient appliances (refrigerator, stove and dishwasher), lighting fixtures
and all of their components, and all electrical components of the Heating
Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system.
Photovoltaic System
Determine the location, size and
type of photovoltaic panels to be used. The selection of all necessary
components needed to supply electricity from the panels to the home/grid.
HVAC System
The buildings will be designed to
optimize several currently used techniques for efficient space heating and
cooling. The HVAC system will be designed inline with the general unit layout
design. The HVAC system will consist of the following subsystems: passive solar
systems, passive cooling, secondary heating source, ventilation system and a
control system.
Unit Layout
This will be the determination of
the building orientation, location of specific rooms (kitchen, bathroom,
bedrooms or living rooms) and appliances to maximize efficiency of all systems
and minimize construction materials.
Construction Materials and Techniques
All building materials will be
selected with the energy efficient criteria previously described. All
construction techniques necessary to create an energy efficient home will be
described (framing, roofing, foundation, etc.)
Out of Scope
We will allocate a space for a maintenance building
which will not be in the scope of this year’s design. Many utilities are
already in place, for the purpose of universality of this project we will not
be designing around the current underground or above ground infrastructure.
Therefore, the utility grid layout will be out of the scope of this year’s
design. It will be assumed that all utility connections (electricity, water,
waste outtake, cable, phone, internet, etc.) will be available at each
building.
