Energy Design Resources “offers a valuable palette of energy design tools and resources that help make it easier for architects, engineers, lighting designers, and developers to design and build energy-efficient commercial and industrial buildings in California.” To that end, they sponsored a two day architectural design competition open to California college students, and the winning UCSB and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo team, “The Sky is the Limit,” took on the challenge to “design and build a welcoming space and zero net energy building primarily for seniors to gather and socialize through activities that promote health and well-being while involving and giving back to the community.” Ryan Kelley, the acting Undergraduate Assistant for the Department of Geography, was the “contractor” for the winning UCSB team, each of who received an Apple iPad 2 prize.
Ryan is a junior majoring in Art History with an emphasis in Architecture and Environment. He signed on as an intern in Geography last year and has become an invaluable asset to the Department. His involvement with the EDR competition came about after receiving an e-mail from our own Katie Maynard, advertising the integrated design workshop and competition. Katie, UCSB Sustainability Coordinator, worked with Southern California Edison and Energy Design Resources to bring the design charette to UCSB. “In this two day design event, students of the EDR DesignShift Charrette worked through an intense integrated design process to design integrated building solutions to achieve Zero Net Energy (ZNE). Teams were then given two weeks to continue work and submit for the final design competition. Students came from universities and colleges across California and worked in groups of multiple disciplines ranging from architecture to engineering to ecology to psychology. Students spent day one studying concepts of integrated design roles, project management and team dynamics. Day two was devoted to designing a building through the EDR Design Shift process using strategies and analysis tools taught throughout the day.” A PowerPoint presentation of competing teams’ efforts can be seen here.
To quote Ryan, “The design charette organizers taught us how to utilize computer programs such a Climate Consultant, developed at UCLA (pictured at right) and SPOT. “Climate Consultant is intended to support this vast constituency of small energy consumers who design, build, own, and maintain this huge stock of envelope-dominated buildings. The purpose is not simply to plot climate data, but rather to organize and represent this information in easy-to-understand ways that show the subtle attributes of the climate, and its impact on built form. The goal is to help users create more energy efficient, more sustainable buildings, each of which is uniquely suited to its particular spot on this planet” (source). SPOT™ is intended to assist a designer in quantifying the existing or intended electric lighting and annual daylighting characteristics of a given space and to help establish the optimal photosensor placement for the space relative to annual performance and annual energy savings” (source). These programs were especially useful in the design process and allowed us to focus on the weaknesses and strengths of our project. All of the programs that were used in the charette are free to download online so anyone interested can access them.”
The next EDR DesignShift is scheduled to be held Spring 2012. Interested students can submit their e-mail addresses at the Energy Design Resources website for announcements.
Editor’s note: Many thanks to Ryan for providing the material for this article.
