Office building Baumschlager-Eberle: a building without heating

Source: Detail; photo: Jakob Schoof

The architects from Baumschlager-Eberle have built a very special office building in Lustenau, Austria, partly for their own office, partly to be rented.
Although it was not their intention to build a building according to passive standard, it has become a real passive building, since the building has no heating system (and no mechanical ventilation).
More details can be found in Detail and at their website.

How to save food without using a fridge?

Source: Savefoodfromthefridge

The Korean designer Jihyun Riyou is inspired by the traditional oral knowledge of saving food without using a fridge, knowledge that has been used in her country in the past. She designed a whole system to save fruit, potatoes, herbs, vegetables, ...without using a fridge. All details can be found on her site. She also keeps a blog to share her ideas and where she asks everyone to share his/her knowledge.

Strange creatures walking on the beach driven by the wind

Theo Jansen is a Dutch artist who creates Strandbeests, structures made out of plastic tubes and old lemonade bottles that are able to walk on the beach, driven by the wind.
I wonder if this still can be called lowtech. At least, he uses low tech materials, but he combines it with very hightech thinking. And he ends up with very poetic creatures. An intriguing and sometimes funny talk by Theo Jansen at TED, but I still don't get how this works.

Playpumps: kid energy

Kid energy might sound like child labor, but this is completely different. Seen at Worldchanging.com: harnessing the energy of playing kids to pump up water: that is what the Southafrican merry-go-round of Roundabout does. Such a simple, but nice example of a lowtech, sustainable and beautiful technique.

Lowtech solutions (2)

A second group of lowtech solutions is based on the physical phenomenon of reflection of solar radiation. Many solutions make use of radiative reflection:

1) solar shading: obviously well known as a measure to avoid summery overheating, but in fact a simple example of using radiative reflection to avoid solar radiation to enter the building. Most effective when applied at the outside of the building, because when the solar radiation has entered the building, it transforms into longwave radiation and glass is mainly opaque for longwave radiation. An interesting and neutral publication is Shading systems - Solar shading for the European climates. 

2) white and green roofs: traditionally flat roofs are black; they highly absorb the solar radiation, resulting in high surface temperatures up to 80-90°C. This causes higher conductive heat transfer to the inside of the building and contributes also to the urban heat island effect. White roofs reflect more (and thus absorb less) solar radiation, thus reducing the conductive heat transfer to the inside. Green roofs don't reflect so much the solar radiation, but the absorption of solar radiation causes extra evaporation of the water buffered in the green roof. An attempt to put the the impact of white roofs in the right perspective can be found here. An economic study of the environmental benefits of green roofs can be found here.

Guidance of daylight into a cave (Source: unknown)

3) daylight applications:
some of the most beautiful examples of use of radiative reflection can be found in some simple, but innovative daylight applications, such as cave lighting with daylight. A large database of daylight design examples can be found in the online Daylight Design Variations Book developed by TNO and TUE. They are all based on radiative reflection.

Source: Steven Holl

The most beautiful example of daylight application I know is the design by architect Steven Holl for the D.E. Shaw office building in New York. Although it looks like artificial coloured lighting, it is purely daylight. The 'secret' of this concept is explained here. It is worth analysing.

Engineering for the ecological age

As some of you might know already, iTunes U gives you free online access to some of the most excellent lectures from highly reputable institutes such as MIT, Stanford, Oxford,... It is worth to browse in their offerings.

One of my favourite lectures is from John Ochsendorf from MIT. In his video lecture, entitled 'Engineering for the ecological age: lessons from history' he shows very interesting cases where lowtech materials are combined with hightech engineering. And positively he is a very gifted speaker. Look in iTunes U > MIT World > Engineering to find the lecture.
Skip the extremely boring introduction and start at 10:50.

Lowtech solutions (1)

Way too often hightech solutions are percieved as the only solutions for the present energy problems. Still, often also a lowtech approach can offer a valuable solution for many problems. Lowtech means here using some simple phenomena from physics, such as evaporative heat, radiative reflection, thermal mass,... as the basis to generate heat, cold, light,... .

A first example: cooling based on the principle of evaporative heat:

source: Weston Mill Pottery

1) A wine cooler made of ceramic only needs to be wetted with water to chill the bottle of wine. Every summer, the simplicity of this technique amazes me.










2) Sprinkling water mist in the streets can create a local temperature drop in a hot climate: I experienced myself the positive effect at the World Expo in 1992 in Sevilla, Spain and at the World Expo in 2010 in Shanghai

3) Green roofs: they have many functions, but the evaporation of the rain water, buffered in the green roof has a positive cooling effect on the urban heat island effect, often observed in an urban environment.

To be continued...

Bomen ipv verkeersdrempels?

The Independent berichtte onlangs over een experiment in Norfolk County waarbij bomen worden ingezet om automobilisten te doen vertragen als ze een dorp binnen rijden. Eigenlijk zijn het niet de bomen, maar is het de optische illusie die men creëert door de bomen steeds korter bij elkaar te zetten. Hierdoor krijgen automobilisten de indruk dat ze versnellen en dit doet hen hun snelheid minderen met 3-5km/h.
Een mooi voorbeeld van een lowtech oplossing voor een probleem.
Dat deze oplossing ook minder positieve neveneffecten zou kunnen hebben, blijkt uit de discussies die ontstaan op de website van The Independent of op andere fora over verkeersveiligheid.