About the Thermal Environment

The largest organ in the human body is our skin, the shell within which all of our systems can thrive. Our skin in and of itself is a system, with tiny neurons sending electrical impulses to our brain. Our skin not only holds our body together, but helps to regulate the temperature of our insides. Like a house’s brick exterior, our skin keeps us safe and warm. According to Lechner, our bodies are a biological machine, “all warm-blooded animals, and humans in particular, require a very constant temperature” (Lechner 56). Because our skin is such a thin material, it has a hard time maintaining the constant temperature that we require to thrive within our environments. That is why architecture becomes so important to widespread general wellbeing.

The thermal environments that we find ourselves in are not quantifiable in a data-collecting sense. Sure, the outside temperature can be gridded out in numbers, but a piece of metal that is 70 degrees feels much different than a pile of mulch that is the same temperature. That is because our human bodies register not the measurable ‘heat’ of something, but rather the flow of heat in relation to us. This heat flow is governed by a series of factors, including a material’s conductivity. We sense temperature based on how quickly our bodies are losing or gaining heat.

In terms of the built world, our perception of the thermal environment plays a large part in how comfortable a space is. Temperature is only one factor in a milieu of complex interactions: an interior space’s level of comfort is affected also by dew point, relative humidity, and sources of direct radiation. Comfort is not something that can be technologically determined based solely on temperature, similar to Moe’s discussion on technology in the architectural world. Moe states that “machine mentality and predetermined solutions negate the role of human choice in architectural design”(Moe 38). The entire complexity of thermal interactions must be taken into account, because the human element of an architectural space is that which is the most important.

The early goals of any building, as Addingdon discusses, were to relieve the stress of extreme environments, to dull them. “The building as shelter was never saddled with the need to provide for comfort, as it served only to ameliorate those extreme conditions that were beyond the human body’s ability for adaptation” (Addingdon 13). Today, however, the building’s purpose is to try and re-create Lechner’s model of the ‘Garden of Eden’, the perfect level of interior comfort for optimum human pleasure.

Modern building technology and architecture around the globe shows the repercussions of this goal. Regulating a building’s interior temperature is one of the top energy consumers worldwide, America alone guzzling nearly 40 quadrillion Btu of energy (http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=86&t=1).

There has been a recent movement towards more sustainable architectural design, especially in relation to a building’s internal temperature regulation. Passive solar heating design is an especially interesting approach, where a every element of the building is made to collect, store and distribute energy from the sun (absorbing heat in the winter and reflecting solar heat in the summer). It is called ‘passive’ because it doesn’t involve the use of mechanical or electrical devices. Passive solar design takes advantage of the building’s climate, with orientation in relation to natural shade, seasonal fluctuations and yearly sun patterns.

(http://www.wbdg.org/resources/psheating.php)

An American case study of passive solar heating can be found in the Finch House, located in Denver, Colorado and completed in 2005. It uses a Direct Gain Passive Solar System to save over 90% of heating and cooling energy by designing for its surrounding environment.

There are south-facing glass panes, high enough that sun still comes in during the winter months but has overhangs that block the summer sun. There is little glass on the east and west sides, to avoid summer heat gain.

Clearstory windows use natural convection to make use of cool night air, and the entire house’s masonry walls are insulated. A huge amount of energy is saved yet the interior of the house remains comfortable, simply by designing the building to take advantage of its surrounding environment.

A look at network dynamics

In any given system, energy is the driving factor of all dynamic flows and processes on every scale. Living things can even be seen as ‘energy storage devices’, the flow of nutrients stuck in a sort of animated limbo; eventually returned to decompose back into the earth. With the rise of industrial cities, the organic networks of energy and constant cycles are forgotten. History itself becomes erased and irrelevant, we forget where we come from. Jacobs attacks this, and asserts that a monolithic culture has terrible resilience. Mass produced cultures and non-human industry lead to lifeless models that lack the human experience. This past week has been an exploration of different networks, and the evolution of urban and architectural networks over time—discussing what works and what fails.

A culture dominated by external, hierarchical forces is considered a centralized network. Centralized networks are imposing and limiting, not resilient and often very inefficient. Applying machine-like qualities to a city brings with it the brittle inability to respond to change while also squelching the organic life within it—the way the feudal lords suffocated the army of serfs that served them.

In nature, distributed networks bubble up and fuse together many different systems of nature that rely on each other, evolving and changing with one another in synchronized harmony. Distributed networks are empowering, connective, and resilient, allowing for innovation and experimentation and a constant swing and flow of change. Ecosystems are distributed networks, links of chains holding on to each other and providing specific functions that evolve and adapt. Our human bodies are distributed networks, feedback loops of hormones and chemicals registering to keep us healthy. Emergent cities are distributed networks, sustaining dialogue with their immediate environment and looking for change and growth into the future as more life begins to fill its scaffolding.

As humans, we need not forget about our role in the distributed network that is the world ecosystem. Our mechanized industry is an imposing hierarchy that pays no mind to its surroundings, causing ecosystems to flex beyond their point of resilience.  According to DeLanda, feedback in any system is never linear, and we must understand our history to understand our current dynamic state. In analyzing all of the problems that mankind has caused natural ecosystems, we must turn to their origins.

A striking consequence of centralized and decentralized city network  systems in our modern era can be seen in the Chesapeake Bay. In the midst of metropolitan sprawl, it’s easy to forget about the natural world. The Chesapeake is the epicenter for the East Coast’s biodiversity, but the entire ecosystem is suffering because of unsustainable human activity. According to the documentary Poisoned Waters, within the last 25 years, annual crab catch is down 50%. Small fisheries have been decimated by the changing ecosystem. The very heart of the bay has become a ‘dead zone’, a wasteland occupying 40% of the once-pristine waters. This means that the water’s oxygen content has been depleted such that conditions are toxic for marine life. Hypoxic conditions are caused by algae blooms, caused by an increase in available nutrients (namely, phosphorous and nitrogen). These chemicals come from runoff emptying into various rivers eventually leading to the bay.

The changing urban landscape of the centralized D.C. area is a major contributor to these chemicals. The metropolitan area has become an inefficient network of sprawling suburban centers, channeling in resources from far and wide and utterly disregarding our landscape. The forests of the Potomac are becoming impermeable concrete and asphalt surfaces before our very eyes, and rainwater sweeps traffic pollution down the river and into the Chesapeake Bay.

DeLanda discusses that urban infrastructure is like “bone to our fleshy parts”, but that they often operate far from natural equilibrium. Markets surpass the size of local gatherings, and become a hierarchy of meshworks: falling into cycles of intense exploitations and then depletions that halt growth. In the industrial age, the bifurcations that previously functioned as self-regulating feedback loops are now ignored and invented beyond. Tyson’s corner is a good example of this disregard for a system that doesn’t work. A network of sprawling roads from the heart of the shopping center has become 6 lanes of traffic, people drive for hours just to reach a singular urban location.

Our decentralized food networks also contribute to this. In the 20^th century, Purdue turned chicken farms into chicken factories. Large-scale farming as a mass producing machine is fundamentally altering the dynamics of our country’s ecosystems. The organic waste from enterprises such as this is shocking, also a major contributer to nitrogen and phosphorous flow into the Chesapeake Bay. The UPC (United Poultry Concerns) discusses that the annual litter from a typical broiler chicken house of 22,000 birds contains as much phosphorous as in the sewage from a community of 6,000 people. Excess nitrogen converts to ammonia and nitrates, burning the fragile cells of land plants and poisoning ground and surface waters. Concentrated poultry waste spawns excess algae that consume aquatic nutrients and block sunlight needed by underwater grasses. In decay, the algae suffocate fish. High levels of nitrate in groundwater used as drinking water can cause methemoglobinemia, a blood disorder in infants, known also as “blue baby disease” (http://www.upc-online.org/fouling.html). Instead of fetching resources from so far away, distributed networks rely on that which is directly available to them, and work through a series of linkages and natural feedback loops to keep both their growth and efficiency in check.

I think that if Americans begin to realize that we cannot ‘design’ our way out of every problem that we encounter, and start listening to the natural flows of the earth, our planet as a whole will function much more smoothly. Networks and feedback loops will be at ease, and the places that we live will breathe into a new sort of resilience like our very bodies. 

 

Photo sources:

http://thecityfix.com/blog/urban-repositioning-america-edge-cities-virginia-tysons-corner-pla/

http://www.virginiaplaces.org/chesbay/savethebay.html

http://reconsideringutopia.blogspot.com/2009/11/networks-cities-and-trees.html

Calgary needs mechanical systems

The only thing that really works to make Calgary comfortable is heating and humidification, which uses a lot of mechanical energy.

Calgary is an uncomfortable place to live

By default, Canada is a very inefficient place to live because the climate is very cold, not humid, and passive design doesn’t really work.

PDF of Project Proposal

Hearst Competition System Proposal

Obesity is a constantly increasing problem in the United States, as a result from the compounding habits of both a horrible diet and the sedentary lifestyle that most adults lead. According to Vanderbilt in “The Crisis in American Walking”, Americans are nearly 5,000 steps below the recommended daily amount. This deficit of exercise is due to the layout of our society’s infrastructure—with our long car commutes and non-walkable streets. The layout of our buildings is a smaller-scale issue that affects a large majority of working adults; the convenience of office buildings is killing us.

In most cases, office buildings confine its occupants in strata of identical floors, layered ever higher towards the sky. The circulation through these floors is facilitated by elevators, and little consideration is ever given to taking the stairs (which are most often tucked away in a far corner of the building, for use in emergencies only). Even within each floor, circulation and movement are discouraged. A vague landscape of repeating cells appears as a monotonous labyrinth, and most occupants remain at their desk from 9 to 5. Compounded with sitting in traffic before and after work and returning home to a television and greasy microwave meal. The American lifestyle has become one of sluggishness and convenience.

Despite this trend of overarching laziness, many Americans wish to adopt healthy lifestyles. New Years’ Resolutions are begun with frantic vigor, and quickly given up on. Changing little habits is a force for change. Perhaps stairs can be the driver in the reversal of obesity.

My proposal integrates technology into the workplace. A building-wide program would be adopted, installing sensors on stairways and elevators, and encouraging workers to wear a device. The device functions like a pedometer, worn on the hip. Each person electronically sets a daily goal for how many steps to take and flights of stairs to climb. As they come closer to meeting their own goal, the device projects a pool of light at their feet—growing in intensity and becoming a shining beacon if the goal is met. The entire circulation network of the building then becomes a field of glimmering fireflies, each illuminating their own path of migration and health. However, if a person takes an elevator before their goal has been met, their feet will glow red. This sort of public display and self-determined motivation within an office space encourages movement and activity.

Taking the stairs on a daily basis can havesignificant long-term benefits. According to the NH Department of Health and Human Services, taking a single flight of stairs three times a day burns 15 calories. Six flights of stairs three times a day burns 90 calories. Over the course of a business year, this daily calorie expenditure can lead to nearly 8 pounds in weight loss. By adopting small healthy habits, the epidemic plaguing our country can be reversed.

SOURCES:

“Calories Burned Walking a Flight of Stairs.” New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. N.p., June 2007. Web. 02 Oct. 2013.

Coleman, L.D., R.D., Erin. “Healthy Eating.” Healthy Eating. Demand Media, 2013. Web. 02 Oct. 2013.

Stefan, Kwabena. “How Many Calories Do Americans Consume Per Day?”LIVESTRONG.COM. N.p., 15 Nov. 2010. Web. 02 Oct. 2013.

Vanderbilt, Tom. “The Crisis in American Walking.” Slate.com. N.p., 10 Apr. 2012. Web. 18 Sept. 2013.

The Intervention of Stairs on the American Obesity Epidemic

The Small American Habits that Lead to Obesity

Draft Drawings of Systems for intervention

I want to focus on the American rise in obesity, and intervening on this system by encouraging people to take the stairs. This will be done using an application or digital program that allows people to set goals for themselves within their office building or workspace during the course of a day to reach a certain number of steps or climb a certain number of stairs. As people come closer to reaching their daily goals, the footprints they leave behind will become brighter and brighter. If they haven’t met their goals and choose to take the elevator, their footprints will turn red. By self-motivation, more people will choose to be physically active during the workday when they would otherwise remain sedentary.

 

Blog Post 2

Today’s class brought epiphanies and surprises in many forms, and I am incredibly intrigued with how the human body continues being a point of focus. Sherman talked about our bodies as walking ecosystems, each of our organs acting as a habitat for bacteria to live inside of. It’s interesting to think of each of us as carrying our own universes inside of us, cycles and systems proceeding flawlessly without our knowledge. We aren’t self-contained, however. We are far from closed loops. Like any other living thing, we reach out and connect to the world around us, draw from its supplies of energy to keep us lively and healthy. Light from the sun colors the world and feeds our eyes, songs ring inside of our ears, wind passes through our hair and into our lungs. We are at the mercy of our world, intrinsically linked through the ecosystems of our own bodies to the larger ones around us. We are forced to connect with our world constantly, incessantly. We need oxygen for our hearts to beat, food for our bodies to work. Today in lecture it was mentioned that the interface between the air in our lungs and the blood that recieves it is between the size of a tennis court and a football field. Those that say we can turn a blind eye to our environment, or construct more ways to become further detached from it, seem to be unaware of the endless, unavoidable ways that our biological health reflects that of the world we live in.

Looking at the way we fit into the energy flows of the Earth is an interesting and arduous process, links can be drawn and followed, eventually all of them trace back to the sun. A lot of the infrastructural processes that we have instituted to benefit the human population, however, are wildly inefficient and far distanced from the sun as a source of energy. With each transformation of energy, a fraction of it is lost (mostly to heat). As it is transformed more and more, refined down to the specific end use, only a teensy percentage of the original energy has actually been put to use.

When looking at an action as simple as picking an apple, energy flows create a vast network of systematic infrastructures that we aren’t fully aware of. A few of these include the mass production of food that goes into our own diets, and the fertilization processes used to cultivate crops. Cutting down on this web of flows is the easiest way we can create a healthier world for ourselves because it wastes so much less energy. By simply choosing to eat non-processed, organic food, we are saving our energy expenditures by leaps and bounds.

Upon further research, I found that the best way for humans to use and waste unneccessary energy is by choosing to eat beef. The cultivation of beef for human consumption is by far one of the worst infrastructural endeavors in terms of the environment. The list of negative impacts is long.. In the United States alone, the total cattle inventory in 2012 was 89,299,600 (http://www.beefusa.org/beefindustrystatistics.aspx).  Each cow brought to slaughter in its lifetime has consumed 284 gallons of oil from the production of corn feed alone. That means that in America, 284 gallons of oil per cow, nearly 90,000,000 times over, is an enormous consumption statistic. If those sparse natural resources were allocated elsewhere, our energy crisis and the problem of insufficient oil could be softened. 

The implications of beef are especially unnerving in terms of the Central American Rainforest, because “We import more than 200 million pounds of beef from Central America alone. Every second of every day, one football field of tropical rainforest is destroyed in order to produce 257 hamburgers” (Earthsave). This importation is not even considering the resources allocated for the actual transport of beef itself. In the immediate scope of the United States and our individual ability to act, the first move towards a greener planet would be to abstain from beef, especially that which is imported from other countries. If the beef is bought locally, energy used for shipment is saved. If the beef is grass-fed, then a lot of oil (284 gallons per cow) would be saved. 

Needless to say, even the smallest of our actions on a daily basis has huge infrastructural consequences, leading to our gargantuan wastes of energy as a nation, and the declining health of our planet as a whole. According to Ristenen, America consumes far more energy than it produces. And energy is something that can be refined and transformed to our benefit, due to its nature of never truly disappearing. Energy, by scientific definition, is something that can never be created nor destroyed. With every transformation of energy, some is lost as heat into the “background energy of the universe”. Buchanan states in “Ten Shades of Green” that buildings are beginning to be designed with a mile radius around them in mind. By taking into account the way architecture, like any other system, affects the world around it in a large way, we are learning to design our infrastructures as ecosystems instead of like machines.

In many ways, the human body can be seen as a metaphor for these systematic implications. Energy enters the system to complete a variety of functions, but inevitably some is lost through body heat. The planet works the same way, energy enters from the sun, does some work on various systems, then diffuses into space as heat. As architects, it is our job to learn to harness and make good use of the energy available to us, instead of soiling the Earth with its refuse.

One way to cut down on energy loss in a building system is by cutting down on heating and cooling expenditures, which takes up a large majority of total energy use (the breakdown in residential buildings can be seen here). Many buildings achieve this end through creative means, most of which incorporate the natural environment:

 

(via http://www.roofrocket.com/roofing-tips-and-advice/green-roof-equals-savings/ )

Green Roofing is an interesting and beautiful option that is becoming more and more widespread in cities.

Insulating materials are rated based on their R-value, higher means a more restricted flow of heat (and therefore better insulation). Insulating materials themselves are changing at a rapid rate to more natural, environmentally friendly options such as soybean foam, sheep’s whool and cotton.

By paying attention to the world around us, we as architects can help transform the human role in destroying the world into a dynamic, healthy, sustainable relationship. According to Buchanan in “Ten Shades of Green”, “a sustainable culture cannot be vulnerable to excessive instability, social breakdown or a return to ways disprespectful of earth. [It is our job to] ensure economic opportunity and social equity. Creativity is the unfolding of natural evolution and moment by moment happenings, transcending ego in favor of eco and playing a part in the flowering of earth”. Instead of soiling and disrupting natural ecosystems, it is our job to work alongside them and leverage them to our advantage. We are, afterall, walking miniature ecosystems ourselves.