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The AIA seeks proposals for research
projects to be completed in a seven-month period beginning May
2008. The AIA will award up to 10 grants of $7,000 each for
selected projects. This grant qualifies recipients to have their
findings and outcomes published both electronically in the AIA
Soloso online database and in a nationally distributed publication:
The American Institute of Architects Report on University Research,
Volume 4. Preference will be given to PhD candidates and junior
faculty members focusing on completion or distribution of research
or on initial explorations of a particular concept.
Congratulations to the ten
recipients of the 2008 Program!
Selected
Proposals:
>Thermally
Active Surfaces
Principal Investigator: Kiel Moe (Northeastern University)
Abstract: This research focuses on the new role of
thermally active surfaces in architecture in our work towards
low-to-no energy consumption buildings. In this transformation of
energy and building practices, the thermal conditioning of a
building is decoupled from the ventilation system, using the mass
of the building itself as the thermal system rather than air. This
approach reinvests the fabric of the building itself with a more a
poignant role: the structure is also the primary mechanical system.
This yields a cascading set of advantages for the building design
and construction industry: radically lower energy consumption, more
durable buildings, more healthy buildings, and more highly
integrated building systems and design teams. An important aspect
of thermally active surfaces is that they are low-tech yet high
performance and are thus equally applicable in the developed and
developing worlds. As such, thermally active surfaces are central
to multiple aspects of sustainability. This grant funding will
sponsor a new set of ten case studies that elucidate the few
recently constructed projects based upon thermally active surfaces
in architecture for the first major publication on thermally active
surfaces in architecture (the full, 250 page manuscript will be
complete at the end of 2008). The book is practice-driven, aiming
to elucidate principles and practices for direct
implementation.
>Socially
Responsible Collaborative Models for Green Building Design
Principal Investigators: Keith E. Hedges, AIA NCARB M.Arch.
M.S.S.E. (University of Nebraska-Lincoln , University of Wyoming);
Anthony S. Denzer, Ph.D. M.Arch, LEEP AP (University of Wyoming);
Christopher Livingston, M. Arch (Montana University )
Abstract: Accrediting boards are under the
perception that multidisciplinary teams are an ideal collaborative
model in light of integrated practice (IP) and a heightened social
responsibility. This perception may lead the architectural
accrediting board to prematurely adopt an outdated collaborative
model already in place by the engineering accreditation board. The
ACSA recommendations for the 2008 Accreditation Review Conference
state “Collaborative Skills should evolve to address the
ability of students to both recognize the value of
interdisciplin¬ary collaboration and to work collaboratively
with students in multidisciplinary design teams.” This is a
shift from a curricular choice to a prescriptive composition of
team learning. The engineering accrediting board previously adopted
multidisciplinary team engagements prior to the intervention of IP.
Architecture and engineering programs should explore the frontiers
of disciplinarity where opportunities exist to embrace a broader
civil society. Educator Sue McGregor describes highest mode of
transdisciplinary activities as being between, across and beyond
disciplines “far beyond the academy, the synergy created at
the interface between the academy (disciplines) and civil society
is woven together to create new kinds of shared knowledge that shed
light on the complex problems of humanity.”
This research shall investigate several
modes of disciplinarity behind the backdrop of social
responsibility, climate change and sustainability, and integrated
practice. In an effort to establish disciplinarity and the backdrop
conditions, three research sites are triangulated. The participants
include students and faculty of an engineering program (University
of Wyoming) and two architectural programs (Montana State
University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln). The students
will simultaneously collaborate in real-time through a shared
knowledge resource to establish distance IP environments. A
comprehensive architectural project, based on a green building
program and site, induces the other backdrop conditions. The
primary results will inform the accreditation boards and their
constituent groups of socially responsible collaborative models for
green building design. Ancillary results will develop the hallmarks
of best practice strategies for classroom and curricular use of BIM
and IP.
>Green Classroom Toolbox:
Retrofitting Educational Facilities for Carbon Neutrality and
Students’ Productivity Evidence-Based Design Guidelines
Principal Investigator: Ihad Elyeyadi, Ph.D., IES (University of
Oregon)
Abstract: Existing classrooms and educational
spaces are problematic. They consume 50% of the nation’s
electricity, generate 35% of our waste, use 8% of water resources
and are responsible for 20% of green house gas (GHC) and carbon
dioxide emissions. While, the new construction sector of the
building industry has benefited from products and green building
strategies to produce high performance sustainable schools,
existing classrooms, however, have been largely ignored. This
problem is magnified due to the large amount of occupied classroom
space in the US, which exceeds 20 billion square foot (this figure
also includes labs, lecture halls, and meeting spaces). These
existing educational spaces, generally a product of the past 30-50
years, are energy and environmentally unconscious. Since many of
the new building products and sustainable technologies are not
applicable to existing classrooms retrofits, this collaborative
research project intends to target this problem through the
development and implementation of the Green Classroom Toolbox (GCT)
comprehensive project. The goals and objectives of this project are
to develop green design guidelines for retrofitting existing
educational spaces that are based on carbon neutrality metrics and
student achievements outcomes. The basis of these guidelines is the
analysis of data from a multi-disciplinary applied research project
that we have recently completed in addition to an extensive
meta-analysis of prior studies and energy modeling simulations. One
of the significant targets of this project is to link green
retrofit design strategies with their carbon emission reductions
and impact on human health and student achievements. Every day, 50
million students attend schools and classrooms. The American
Society of Civil Engineers reported that our aging educational
buildings are in worse condition than any other infrastructure,
including prisons. EPA estimates that 40 percent of our
nation’s 115,000 schools and universities suffer from poor
environmental conditions that may compromise health, safety, and
learning of more than 14 million students. These
conditions—which include asbestos, lead, radon, pesticides,
cleaning agents, building materials, molds, leaking roofs,
underground fuel tanks, poor heating and ventilation systems,
inadequate lighting, and failing plumbing— contribute to a
host of health concerns for both students and personnel. Problems
are compounded by density. In addition, educational facilities have
four times the number of occupants per square foot than most
offices.
This grant will support the analysis
and translational tasks of our data collection into evidence
based design guidelines and a decision support website and design
guideline. The intended
guidelines will be developed to:
• Increase the productivity, comfort, and health of students
in retrofitted classrooms;
• Facilitate integrated design and cooperation between
designers;
• Reduce environmental impacts and move us towards carbon
neutrality environments in schools, and
• Have a potential to be a model for future replication and
dissemination.
>Experimental Constructions in
Mumbai
Principal Investigator: Scott Shall (Temple University)
Abstract: In the summer of 2008, a team of
architecture, art and design students representing nine
universities will travel to Mumbai, India where they will design
and build portable school shelters for children living within the
improvised settlements of that city. Over the course of six weeks,
our multidisciplinary team will use their creative talents to
breathe new life into undervalued materials and indigenous methods
of construction and work with our host community to create a new
approach to building schools. The resulting proposal will be
neither a replication of existing local methods nor an imposition
of foreign solutions. Rather, it will be a synthesis of both
traditions – a hybrid address that empowers our partners to
possess and evolve the strategy in a meaningful way.
To realize this ambition, participating students must develop an
understanding of existing materials and construction processes.
Thus, while abroad, students will work collaboratively with
students and volunteers from P.Y. Patil School of Architecture in
New Mumbai and Mobile Crèches to create a battery of
experimental constructions designed to uncover, test and evolve the
tectonic approach described above. The purpose of this grant is to
fund and document these experimental constructions and disseminate
all associated findings upon return to the US. In this way, this
grant will not only allow the team to develop the tectonic
sensitivity necessary to design a much-needed facility for a Indian
non-profit, but also provide the field with an interesting test of
the practices and pedagogies that will inform this work.
>Integration of Solid-State,
Solar-Powered Micro-Cooling Assemblies in Building Skins:
Feasibility, Performance Studies, and Prototyping
Principal Investigator: Michael D. Gibson, M.Arch (Ball State
University)
Abstract: The following project proposes the study
of a solid state, solar-powered micro-cooling system for
integration in building skins, and the architectural implications
of such a system. As opposed to centralized HVAC systems, the
project’s subject of examination is a decentralized system of
cooling using an array of inexpensive, independently responsive
units with collective intelligence.
The basis of the proposed cooling system is the application of
photovoltaic panels to power thermoelectric cooling modules.
Supplied with an electric current, thermoelectric devices transfer
heat from one side of the device to another, heating one side while
chilling the other. In summary, the proposed system would work as a
compact, microprocessor-controlled unit consisting of a
thermoelectric module, a photovoltaic panel, exterior heat
dissipation plates, and an interior cooling plate with condensate
discharge and fan. The innovation of the proposed concept,
distinguishing it from
past proposals for thermoelectric building cooling, is its
potential integration in the building skin as a distributed array
of independently functioning units.
Through the construction of a series of prototypes, the
feasibility, performance, and architectural implication of these
‘micro-cooling’ systems will be studied. Constructed at
1:2 scale in order to accommodate scientific instruments, a final
functioning prototype will simulate the performance of the proposed
system under realistic conditions, while monitoring an identical,
unconditioned prototype in parallel. These proposed prototypes
intend to both demonstrate the raw technology of the proposal and,
using advanced modeling and fabrication methods, explore the
design, assembly, and integration of the system’s components
in the building envelope.
>A Digitally Fabricated House for
New Orleans: Production and Presentation of an Exhibition for
MoMA
Principal Investigator: Lawrence Sass, Ph.D. (Massachusetts
Institute of Technology)
Abstract: We request funds for ongoing
architectural research in computing and digital fabrication at the
Design Lab at MIT. We seek support for application of this
technology to build an exhibit for the Modern Museum of Art in New
York City (MoMA), July 20 2008. The house will be relocated to a
site in New Orleans Oct 20, 2008. Faculty and staff at the lab are
currently producing the first digitally fabricated house as a New
Orleans shotgun cabin that will be an assembly of interlocking
plywood components. The house will be digitally fabricated off site
and assembled on an open lot between 54th and 55th street adjacent
the MoMA. We currently seek funds for the assembly phase of the
project in NYC.
>From Benchtop to Bedside:
Transferring research lessons learned in an undergraduate
program
Principal Investigator: Meredith Banasiak, M.Arch. (University of
Colorado)
Abstract: While there is a rising demand for research and
“evidence based design” in architectural practice, as the
1996 Boyer Report1 and many subsequent critiques of architectural
education point out, research is generally not being addressed in
design education. Given the innovative and rigorous nature of the
extant undergraduate projects, it is apparent that undergraduate
students can contribute much to research about the designed
environment. This proposal seeks to develop and test a model which
will not only foster a culture of research in undergraduate design
education and provide a framework for students to discover new
knowledge, but moreover, will promote knowledge transfer between
academia and the design profession using the student as a vehicle.
Building on efforts currently embedded in the environmental design
curriculum at University of Colorado such as the Undergraduate
Research Opportunities Program (UROP,
http://www.colorado.edu/research/UROP/), Center for Children, Youth
and Environments Undergraduate Internships (CYE,
http://thunder1.cudenver.edu/cye/), studios which embrace real
world scenarios and design build projects (e.g. TrailerWrap,
http://www.trailerwrap.net/), and interdisciplinary seminars
investigating relationships between cognitive science and
environmental design (e.g., ARCH 6290: Design with the Brain in
Mind), it is proposed that the implementation of a
“Preceptorship Program” would allow a student to pair
with 1) an academic mentor from one of the College’s four
research centers2, and 2) a practicing design professional mentor,
in order to structure a research partnership which is innovative,
collaborative, publishable, and carries knowledge from
“benchtop to bedside”. In addition to developing the
preceptorship program which could serve as a conceptual framework
model for other undergraduate design programs to adopt, research
will be undertaken to structure mechanisms which would make the
results from the undergraduate research projects both locally and
globally accessible to practitioners, students and researchers.
>Design for Aging Review:
Analyzing and disseminating statistical data and trends to define
the purpose and design of aging community environments
Principal Investigators:
Design for Aging Knowledge Community:
• Leslie Moldow, AIA - Perkins Eastman
• Stefani Danes, AIA - Perkins Eastman
• Ingrid Fraley, ASID - Design Services, Inc.
• Eric McRoberts, AIA - RLPS
• James Warner, FAIA - JSA, Inc.
• Joyce Polhamus, AIA – SmithGroup
Abstract: This past September more than 70
submittals were received for the Design for Aging (DFA) Review 9
Design Competition. AIA firms identified such trends as
sustainability, building/community relationships, and the purpose
of a well designed environment for the aging. We were told, and
told the firms in turn, that the data collected could be
systematically analyzed and the results shared so that members
could learn from the trends of the best designs in the
country.
Despite the firms’ amazing investment of time required to
submit, the data was collected. However, the company the AIA
requested we collaborate with, did not deliver the results we were
promised. Five months later, these leading edge design submissions
are still sitting in their raw form making the data they contain
unusable to the Design for Aging community.
The DFA Knowledge Group researched the most cost effective process
to make good use of the data. We are requesting $7,000 to
“data mine” the information, transform it into organized
data, analyze it for trends, patterns and statistics, and shared
the findings with our members as a useful design tool and valuable
source of knowledge.
We previously requested funding for this data mining in both our
2007 and 2008 Action Plans but it was not approved. Our request has
been reduced from $20,000 to $7,000 by proposing that we do the
research though the use of an intern and the in-kind services for
supervision and leadership donated by Perkins Eastman as opposed to
hiring an outside firm.
>Educate, Preserve, Reuse: The
Good (Not Great) Buildings of San Francisco
Principal Investigators: Mark Kessler (University of California,
Davis)
Abstract: In American cities, developers and
government continue to propose large-scale projects to achieve
economic growth and neighborhood revitalization. These projects, no
matter how "green," consume new materials and often involve tossing
away of existing and adaptable structures, many of which make
significant contributions to the scale and character of the
city.
While the preservation movement has made great strides in saving
landmarks and historical districts, it has been less effective in
protecting good, not great, buildings. Now, the acknowledged
environmental crisis has the potential to reinvigorate the
preservation movement and alter perceptions about the value of
existing buildings and adaptive re-use. A new idea of progress is
emerging, one paradoxically predicated on an acceptance of finite
resources. Architects, economically dependent upon new
construction, are slowly awakening to the reality referred to by
Robert Ivy, Editor-in-Chief of Architectural Record, when he asked,
"What can be greener than reuse?"
I propose to lead a studio of UC Davis design students in a study
of typical San Francisco infill buildings that have architectural
merit, that are adaptable, and that help define the character of
streets and neighborhoods. Specifically, the focus is on buildings
that present an historicist façade over an industrial
interior: auto repair garages, warehouses, and utility buildings.
Due to age, condition, anonymity and use, these worthy buildings
are vulnerable. The goal is to promote the preservation of good,
typical infill buildings as a form of recycling. The outcomes will
be presented to the San Francisco Department of City
Planning.
>Value Densification Community
Project (VDCp): Community Mapping in Southwest Detroit
Principal Investigators: Constance C. Bodurow, Assoc. AIA, AICP
(Lawrence Technological University); Dr. Alan Hoback, PE
(University of Detroit Mercy)
Abstract: The principal investigators completed
the Value Densification Community Pilot Project (VDCpp) in Summer
2007. Our goal was to explore how aspects of the post-industrial
city can be understood, communicated, and leveraged in service of
equity and sustainability, and to use technology to reveal data
about the city in order to convince community, political, and
economic leadership to embrace a broader interpretation of value.
We created a unique “free-ware” digital interface
utilizing Google Earth, Sketch Up, and GIS to model both physical
and social density utilizing a variety of data sets in Southwest
Detroit, MI, USA – a vibrant neighborhood that is currently
transforming socially, physically, and economically. The resultant
digital interface empowers the community through asset
identification and creation of an accessible tool to assist in
envisioning its environmental, social, and economic future. The VDC
digital interface is unique in that it models “social
exchanges” in three dimensions, and allows the user to overlay
social and infrastructure layers with physical density. In Phase 2,
we will continue to engage the Southwest Detroit community to
determine how non profit groups can best utilize data and mapping
as planning, design, development, and evaluative tools. The focus
of the project is to create a comprehensive tool that can support
community design and development policy decisions. Community
members will become active partners in evolving the digital
interface as a tool for strategic planning at the
agency/organization, coalition, city and regional levels.
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