UH RESEARCH AND ENQUIRY @harshtharwani - Tumblr Blog

Reflective Blog

Although the Research and Enquiry module has come to an end. The module has helped me understand the sustainable lifestyle in design in depth and has also taught me how to research the core of the subject.

I started the module with interest in Sustainability, and by the end of the module, it has got me quite far enough to practice it in my future. All my blogs show how I have progressed in my research about sustainability starting with materials to furniture and then to complete construction. Dr.Steven Adams has helped me all the way in selecting, editing and increasing my research in my discipline.

My aim in the future as an interior architect is to make the world a better place and use all of my research about sustainability and put it into practice. I chose this topic because I believe that designers can change the world and as our planet Earth is getting harmed, I want to design the world for a healthy living for all the human beings in this planet.

#research and enquiry #reflection #lastblog #conclusion

archatlas

80-Year-Old Wooden Escalators Become Art

Turning old wooden escalators, 80 years old, into a beautiful aerial sculpture celebrating both the past and modernity? This is the idea of the Australian artist Chris Fox, whose creation entitled Interloop has just been installed in the Wynyard Station of the Sydney underground. This monumental installation pays tribute to the old wooden escalators of the city, since replaced by more modern metal versions.

harshtharwani

Artist Chris Fox was tasked with repurposing two pairs of timber escalators that were first installed at Sydney’s Wynyard Station in 1931. The escalators have carried passengers for over 80 years and slowly became an iconic symbol of the city’s identity. Fox’s solution is Interloop, a twisting, accordion-like ribbon that is now suspended from the station ceiling, stitching together 244 wooden escalator treads in an otherworldly design

Artist Chris Fox has made a lovely design which is eye catching and aesthetically correct.

#research and enquiry

Future Building Materials: Aerogels, Nanocrystals, and Smart Windows

By KEN MICALEFF

Graphene has a very high surface area and has very interesting mechanical and electrical properties, So it could be used in a supercapacitor or a battery. Generally, when you have materials with features at nanosize scales, you’re really affecting the physics of things like electrical and photonic properties. Even unique thermal properties can be achieved.

A nanocrystal, for example, is a crystalline nanoparticle having at least one dimension smaller than 100 nanometers (a nanoparticle) and composed of atoms in either a single- or poly-crystalline arrangement. Nanocrystals are much smaller than larger crystals, so how could they be used in the here and now? One example is smart windows, with California’s Heliotrope Technologies leading the smart-window charge.

By applying voltage to the nanocrystalline film, you can tune its properties so that in the winter, you can allow some of that heat through for passive solar-heating purposes, but you can block it in the summer when you don’t want it,” Holt continues. “Much like charging a lithium ion battery, you in essence charge up your devices to control the state of visible or infrared transmission through the window.”

Aerogel, is an oddly familiar-sounding term that has nothing to do with hairspray and everything to do with supercapacitors.

Aerogel is an extremely lightweight foam. You can make it out of different materials. Aerogels could provide insulation; they have very low thermal conductivity because the structures within them are so thin. They like to call them ‘structural smoke’ because they are lighter than air. If you were to draw a box around it and calculate the density, it’s very low. But they’re essentially random foams that are extremely lightweight with very thin members and features.

reference: https://www.autodesk.com/redshift/future-building-materials/

http://infotainmentnews.net/2015/12/16/a-look-at-the-building-materials-of-the-future/

#research and enquiry

Meeting the Architecture 2030 Challenge and Beyond

By HEATHER HEAD.

As the impacts of global climate change escalate, forward-thinking architecture firms have committed to being part of the solution.

Here, five professionals from EDR, HOK, and CTA share seven key tactics they’ve employed to move toward the 2030 target—and a sustainable future for the planet.

There are 7 tactics to meet the challenge and those are:

1. Innovate Across the Portfolio

All three architecture firms stress the importance of raising the bar for energy efficiency across a company’s entire portfolio of projects.

2. Set Energy-Use Targets Early

Ashleigh Powell, a sustainability director at CTA, adds that establishing Energy Use Intensity (EUI) targets at the beginning of a project creates a different way of thinking for designers and sets them up for success.

3. Model Early and Often

According to Richard Dykstra, a BPA specialist at CTA, modeling can help internal teams communicate better. “We start early on with all the teams—architecture, engineering, construction, and the owners—to figure out what the goal is,” he says. “Then we play around with different models to figure out what has an impact on that goal and what doesn’t. We use that to inform the design early on. Then we bring everyone together regularly, running simulations and architectural design side by side.”

4. Balance First Cost Against Operational Cost

But how do firms approach clients who aren’t interested in sustainability?

Going after the easy fixes first is one tactic CTA uses, and along with early modeling, it can help find first-cost savings in unexpected places. “We’re working on a small school that is not interested in energy conservation,” Dykstra says. “They just want a school that works. We’re doing everything we can to make responsible choices for them, but with a lower budget, we’re obviously not going to get a super-high-performance building. We do what we can to fix some of the low-hanging fruit for them and make a highly functional, high-performing building.”

5. Make Energy Modeling Accessible and Visual

Tim Johnson, an engineer with CTA, explains how making the models visual helps to engage architects and other stakeholders in the process. “In the past, all the energy work was limited to mechanical engineers, because that’s where the turnkey parts of the energy models usually are,” he says.“It’s important to make this process more accessible to everybody to do the analysis, without hindering creativity.”

6. Integrate Environmental Performance Into the Design Process

“When you start simulating, it’s critical to have the right tools—that way, it’s easy for architects to learn simulation analysis,” Dunn says.

One such tool is Autodesk’s Insight, which is integrated directly into Revit and FormIt and allows architects to run multiple energy-modeling scenarios in a fraction of the time it used to take. “These tools weren’t available even a few years ago, but so much development happened that incorporating them into design is now within reach,” Dunn says.

7. Integrate Sustainability Into Hiring Practices

“There’s a wide spread of university programs and students who care about these issues and others who don’t,” Dunn says.“You have to be intentional about the type of people you seek out.” He adds that it’s also important to assign someone on your team to research and design programs for sustainability so that it becomes a part of the fabric of the organization.

Global climate change is poised to become one of the industry’s most pressing concerns. Firms committed to the 2030 Challenge can lead the way by getting more designers involved in energy discussions throughout the design process and by using these seven tactics to significantly reduce the carbon footprint across their projects.

reference: https://www.autodesk.com/redshift/2030-challenge/

#research and enquiry

Tree-covered towers in Nanjing by Stefano Boeri

Italian architect Stefano Boeri has unveiled plans for a "vertical forest" in China, a pair of towers covered with trees and trailing plants in the centre of Nanjing.

Over 1,000 trees, 2,500 cascading plants and shrubs will line the facades of the Nanjing Vertical Forest, which is already under construction in the city's Pukou District.

The concept aims to provide sustainable high-density housing and office space in urban areas, capable of producing oxygen through its plant-covered facades. The architect plans to roll the concept out across Chinese cities to help offset pollution.

Boeri describes it as "a real vertical forest that will help to regenerate local biodiversity, will provide a 25 tons of CO2 absorption each year and will produce about 60 kilograms of oxygen per day".

"The Nanjing Vertical Forest project is the third prototype of a project about urban forestation and demineralisation that Stefano Boeri Architects will develop all over the world and in particular in other Chinese cities such as Shijiazhuang, Liuzhou, Guizhou, Shanghai and Chongqing," he said.

Nanjing Vertical Forest is expected to complete in 2018.

#research and enquiry

Challenges in Design and Production of Hygromorphic Composites

Methods of Material Fabrication:

The production of wood-based hygromorphic composites capable of withstanding the internal stresses and large changes in curvature resulting from differential hygroexpansion over multiple cycles of response without delamination, requires the selection of fabrication methods that simultaneously provide high strength, stiffness, flexibility and durability of the interfacial bond between the layers. At the same time, negative effects of the bond on the response size and speed must be minimised. Four different methods of material fabrication have been tested, including gluing, mechanical fixing and spot-gluing of rigid passive layers and direct lamination of glass fibre- and bio-fabrics.

There are a few examples:

Demonstration prototype incorporating responsive panels with four different types of layer bonds. The passive layers are shown in the numbered circles (1—wood, 2 and 3—fiberglass and 4—jute fabric).

Issues addressed through improved methods of material fabrication: (A) delamination; (B) excessive penetration of adhesives or laminating resins into wood; (C) cracking of wood; and (D) local buckling of the layers between fixing points.

Experimental setup for lab-based tests on material reactivity to controlled wetting and drying and ambient relative humidity changes. Each sample stand accommodates three composite samples separated by transparent curvature reference charts. The sample stands are levelled with the camera and directed towards it to minimise the parallax effect, thus simplifying the curvature determination. The sign convention for circular curvature measurements, where “A” and “P” are active and passive layers respectively, is shown in the top left corner.

#research and enquiry #critical analysis

The New American Home(1984). "the greenest in history."

30 years ago, the International Builders Show introduced The New American Home. It was 1500 square feet, had advanced framing, water saving appliances and a heat pump. It sold for under $ 100,000. Since then, the New American Home has become more bloated, less efficient and insanely more expensive and out of touch with the bulk of American citizenry.

It has R-38 walls and checks in at 2.7 air changes per hour @ 50 PA, which is hardly Passivhaus (0.6 ACH) quality and is barely better than code standard where I live (3.1 ACH) . But It has 16 KW of photovoltaics on the roof that meet 83% of the home's energy needs. It has four tankless gas fired hot water heaters. It is "expected to consume 78 percent less energy than a code minimum home." They say that all of the lighting is LED or CFL, but that dining room fixture is most definitely a whole pile of retro incandescents.

Reference:https://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/they-are-calling-years-new-american-home-greenest-history.html

#research and enquiry

Pentatonic turns smartphones, cans and cigarette butts into flat-pack furniture.

Start-up company Pentatonic is aiming to "radically transform consumption culture" with a range of furniture and products created from food, electrical, plastic and textile waste.

The company, led by Jamie Hall and Johann Boedecker, is working with an adapted injection-moulding process to transform waste materials into homeware.

It will launch its first collection of customisable flat-packed furniture – all made entirely from recycled materials – during this year's London Design Festival.

When it comes to making the furniture, the type of rubbish used is determined by its properties. Typical examples include smartphones, cans and cigarette butts.

"Subject to what product, finish or performance we are looking for, we select trash based upon its properties and application possibilities, and then apply this technology using a number of precision manufacturing processes," the studio told Dezeen.

With plastic, the waste is washed and sorted before being shredded into pellets, to create a new material ready to be formed into furniture.

Chairs and tables are also designed to be assembled without the need for tools – instead, the components themselves aid the construction of each piece. This means waste is minimised, and no toxic glues or resins are nececssary.

The company are introducing a "circular economy" system. Customers can sell back pieces of their furniture to Pentatonic, so that they can be recycled and reintroduced into the supply chain.

"We're trying to radically transform consumption culture with Pentatonic," said Hall. "Our circular model, whereby we buy back our products from our consumers to recycle them into new products – that's new in a design space."

According to the Telegraph, the company has received £4.3 million in funding ahead of its launch. Investors include Miniwiz – a Taiwan and Berlin-based studio, dedicated to finding new uses for waste and reducing the impact of materials on the environment.

#research and enquiry

MASS DUNDUN

DunDun Mass is an exclusive FCC technology.

The product originated in the early 80's and was developed jointly with industry institutions. DunDun Mass provides unparalleled mechanical performance and durability on the market, using nanoparticles organized into structures that ensure optimal distribution of their polymer compounds. It is a polymer mortar specially developed for the laying of bricks or blocks in the construction of walls

In masonry works of fence, without structural or refractory function. The product is recommended for works of bricks, blocks of concrete or ceramic blocks, of good quality and uniform and regular dimensions that meet the norms and quality sector programs (ANICER or ABCP).

CERAMIC BLOCK HORIZONTAL HOLES

CONCRETE BLOCK

CELLULAR CONCRETEBLOCK

CERAMIC BLOCKVERTICAL HOLES

Why use?

Because with Mass DunDun the economy per square meter is up to 35%. There are fewer stages of the production process, more square meters produced per day, less mortar used.

PRODUCTIVITY

300% more productive. Practical studies show that while in the conventional mortar system a bricklayer and two assistants are required to settle 800 bricks in one day with the DunDun Mass, a bricklayer and an assistant can erect 2,500 bricks at the same time.

RATIONALIZATION

The waste of mortar at the construction site can reach up to 50%. The main causes are the preparation, the variation of the trace (excessive amount of cement and lime) and the handling of the product. And that number may be even higher, according to the research Alternatives for Reducing Waste Materials at the Construction Site *. The reduction of up to 95% of the amount of mortar required for the execution of the masonry, together with the elimination of steps in the construction process, means that the DunDun Mass waste is a maximum of 1%.

SAFETY

It is the only polymeric compound for settlement that meets the ABNT NBR 15,575 standard. In addition to, traction in bending, modulus of elasticity, accelerated aging, chemical attacks and wetting and drying.

http://massadundun.com.br/o-produto/#faq

#Research And Enquiry

Symbiotic Architecture: Space of Emotional Saturation

Modern man, who is a biological species, continues to live in artificial cities. Urban environment provokes negative psychological state of the person. It is necessary to provide a symbiotic relationship between nature, technology, bio-materials and architecture for harmonization of emotional level of the person, visual ecology, urban saturation, formation of an architectural environment. For the competent shaping of architectural space and adding emotional qualities for architecture spaces, the principles of perception of an architectural environment with the natural parameters and principles of functioning of natural organisms were brought out.

The principles of perception of architectural environment by natural settings:

– Geometric: spirality, fractality, integrity, cellularity, curvature, straightness, branching, symmetry, asymmetry, flatness, folding, dynamism, static nature. – Physiological features: visual (light, shadow, color), tactile ( materials), acoustic(echoing, natural sounds), sense of smell. – Psycho-emotional: sociology of spaces, harmonization, aesthetics, mimicry of emotions, manifested in natural environment by architecture. – Spatial: scale, multilayer, formation, incorporation of natural components (water, air, greenery, falling lights of sun) into architectural complex. – Principles of functioning nature: adaptation, transformation, growth, recycling, self-organization, autonomy, multifunctional.

Based on these principles there have been implemented a project “Urban conservation area as a centre of environmental education of citizens” (Kazan, Russia) and a project “Living city. The anatomy of architecture space” (Sao Paulo, Brazil). The project «Urban conservation area» is an area with 7 natural climatic areas with an artificial microclimate. There is the individual architectural imagination for each natural area dividing by similarity of landscape, spatial and volumetric features of the Arctic desert, Taiga, Forest-steppe, Tropical desert, Savanna, Monsoon forest, Wet forests. Architectural concept of imitation of nature consists of fractal concrete, curved rocks, tree-like columns branching to the top, glass enclosing shell, cocoon-shaped volumes formed by overlaying concrete slabs with facing terraces. Architecture imitates nature by spatial and emotional characteristics, but doesn’t imitate it literally. Spatial scales of artificial objects increase emotional outbursts and manifestations of respect and admiration of natural structures.

The concept of “Living city” involves a physical ability of architectural space to interact with environment, adapt and create a new microclimate, create energy resources, reticulate waste, recover and purify air, water and land using programmed protocells, microalgae, aerobic algae and bacteria.

The model of «Living city» has a multifunctional structure. On the ground level model is based by pillars, leaving open and free from building land. There are parks, squares, fairground, shops, cafes and restaurants on an artificially created relief. There are residential units, biodigital blocks, bacterial sponge blocks, blocks of cleaning and storage of water, blocks for recycling waste inside the massive pillars. The first level has a porous structure, inside of which public and office spaces are formed. Main residential blocks are on upper level. Green well, the gaps, function as filters of cleaning air, at the same time passing light in a porous space. Living and working in these spaces, man gets the correct psycho-emotional state, namely feelings of harmony, emotional recovery, the desire to act and live.

https://www.eleven-magazine.com/?entrants=symbiotic-architecture-space-emotional-saturation

#Research And Enquiry

THERMO BIO-METAL:A METAL THAT BREATHES

Architecture professor Doris Kim Sung has given an excellent TED talk (the link is given below)on her work with thermal bimetals, showing how the so-called 'smart materials' can be used to create self-managing systems for buildings. One important use is allowing buildings to react to sunlight, changing their configurations at different times of the day to prevent overheating. The key to this behavior is a curling process created by combining two different metals in one sheet — when heated, the materials expand at different rates, one overtaking the other.

When individual panels are combined and arranged, this simple movement can be used to develop complex systems, but creating shade isn't their only use. Spurred by her undergraduate education in biology, Sung has taken inspiration from the respiratory systems of grasshoppers to create buildings which use thermal bimetals to 'breathe' independently, opening and closing ventilation ducts depending on the time of day and the position of the sun. As she points out at the end of her talk, these systems require no human intervention — even in the case of a power outage, they continue to work "tirelessly, efficiently, and endlessly."

https://youtu.be/wvIyVZf3qZU- URL(MUST WATCH)

#research and enquiry

EARTHENGLASS

Earthenglass is made of 100% recycled glass, sourced from Interstyle's own waste by-products.

In 2008, when the the world was reeling from the Great Recession, Kim Hauner was inventing. Hauner, president of tile manufacturer Interstyle, was searching for a way to re imagine a product that hadn’t seen much change in over 2,000 years. What he came up with is a tile that embodies the values of the 21st century.

After years of research and development, Interstyle has finally readied Hauner’s idea for market. Earthenglass, Interstyle’s latest introduction, is the world’s first tile to use a blend of 100% recycled glass and regionally sourced clay. The glass comes from the waste the brand creates when manufacturing its other tile lines, and the clay is a blend of waste and imported material from Kentucky. Earthenglass is crafted and textured by hand, and comes in a range of colored glazes that are also derived from waste materials.

“Earthenglass came out of a need to recycle and innovate at a very trying time in the economy,” Hauner says. “After 40 years of making glass and clay tiles separately, we figured out that fusing those materials together created an outstanding and eco-friendly product.”

The manufacturing process dramatically cuts down on waste, as well. When making porcelain, a kiln needs to be around 1,200 degrees Celsius. When adding glass to the clay mixture, the required temperature drops to 1,000 degrees Celsius. "That 200-degree difference is the most expensive part of the operation," Hauner says. "By incorporating the recycled glass, we reduce energy input requirements by 25%.”

Product Information

For it’s hand-crafted nature, one color choice will come with some shade variation in every batch. Our swatches consist of two possible variations to be expected.

Earthenglass is made with 100% recycled glass, blended with a mix of natural, regionally sourced clay and porcelain for extra durability.

Perfect for walls and high traffic floor applications. Earthenglass can be installed in both interior and exterior spaces. It can handle humidity and frost.

Shapes

reference: https://interstyleglass.com

#research and enquiry

THERMACORK

SUSTAINABLE MATERIAL

It is made of cork granules put together in a large container pressed down with a super heated steam which causes the material to bond and also become firmly insulative.

It is very different from other insulative materials as it comes naturally from cork,it does not need any binding agent or any additive polymer to make it into a big block.

It can be also be used for outdoor purposes like, outside of a building in large blocks as it acts like a barrier and can withstand sun,wind,rain and heat.

It is a great sustainibility story as it is just a raw material which is harvested naturally perhaps every 8 or 9 years.It is produced with just a little bit of pressure and heat without any additive chemicals.

The exciting feature about Thermacork is simplicity which is produced naturally and easily and that too it’s produced in blocks which are big enough that you can fashion a store or make a seat out of it and can be used in different interior applications with the inherited properties of the material itself and we don’t need to do any extra synthesis or change the material in any way.

Themocork is a sustainable,eco-friendly and a pocket-friendly material.

reference: www.interiordesign.net

www.google.com

#research and enquiry

JEAN-LOUIS DENIOT

A French Architect ,has inspired me to have an eclectic and emblematic style of work which means “A designer should not have a particular style as it can make the designer’s work outdated and less surprising”(says Steven Adams).Never stick to one style of work.

#research and enquiry

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

UH RESEARCH AND ENQUIRY