Sustainable Built Environment Learning and Exhibition Center
Themes to Embody:
- Sustainable materiality (rammed earth, timber, engineered cementitious composites)
- Not carbon-intensive materials
- Locally sourced
- Decarbonized Building, which includes:
- Optimal design to minimize energy usage
- The building is built perpendicular to the direction of the wind to enable natural ventilation
- The building is also built in a direction that maximizes the usage of natural light
- The optimal positioning to accomplish the above is a North-South placement
- Sustainable energy sources
- Structural integrity/durability
- Using the geometry of shapes to add double stiffness of materials
- Climate Resiliency/Adaptability
Inspirations for Themes:
- Sustainable Materiality: Rammed Earth Architecture
- Sustainable Materiality: Mass Timber
- Decarbonized Building: Stanford Building Decarbonization Learning Accelerator
- I have worked with the Stanford BDLA since the start of the year and their website has some great resources
- Decarbonized Building: Optimal Orientation Placement
- Structural integrity/durability through geometry: hyperbolic paraboloids (hypars)
- Climate Resiliency/Adaptability
- Dependent on building location as climate change will be different regionally
- Fireproofing, anti-corrosion to acid rain, buoyant foundation...
- Ex. painting roof white to reflect light and not contribute to heat island effect that occurs in cities
tzou lubroth architekten’s studio
University of Toronto Scholarship Winners
The Carbon Neutral Design Project
Hyperbolic paraboloids (hypars) are thin-shell concrete structures that became prominent in the mid 20th century with the work of Felix Candela. Candela, a Spanish-Mexican structural engineer, focused on creating thin shell concrete forms with the intention of creating structures that were more efficient, economic, and elegant. Inspired by other thin-shell concrete architects and structural engineers, like Pier Luigi Nervi, Eduardo Torroja, and Anton Tedesko, Candela was infamous for his designs of thin-shelled concrete structures of the hyperbolic paraboloid (hypar) geometric shape.