Green Roofs

Canada's Largest Green Roof

This green roof will be the largest in Canada when complete. It's the roof of theVancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre. The whole Centre is being built with high environmental standards. Besides the multi-hectare intensive green roof, it will have energy efficient lighting and electrical systems, an on-site desalinization system, and a greywater treatment that will provide irrigation for the green roof.

School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

One of the most amazing green roofs in the world is at the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. From a distance, you can barely even tell that the 5-story structure is a building, it blends in so well with its environment. A plethora of glass walls allow plenty of natural light to illuminate the interior, and the grassy roof is used as a meeting space for students. The green roof also insulates the building, cools the surrounding air and harvests rainwater for landscape irrigation.

Precedents

Relaxx Sport and Leisure Centre

Espresso Bike

The Expresso Bike Incorporates digital technology into cardio machines and hints at the potential that technology has for the fitness industry. I love the fact that it adds the element of competition which I know to be a powerful motivator...would be great if the software was like guitar hero with powerups, and great graphic feedback for when you are performing well.

Expresso Upright Bike

The first stationary cycle to fuse exertainment with Web-based personalization features in a commercial-quality system! Eye-catching and fully-integrated design. A favorite among owners, managers and riders

http://www.expresso.com/products_services/index.html

Fitness Collage

Initial Concepts

Green Gyms

Green gyms go one step further than most sustainable buildings and use exercise equipment that produces electricity. Companies such as Green Revolution have kinetic power generation devices that are retrofitted to existing fitness bikes and produce electricity as someone works out on the equipment.

A typical group cycling class with about 20 bikes has the potential to produce up to 3.6 Megawatts (3,600,000 Watts) of renewable energy a year. This is equivalent to the amount of power needed to light 72 homes for a month while also reducing carbon emissions by over 5,000 pounds.

Ref : http://egreenrevolution.com/me_pressrelease.aspx?setting=3

The Green Microgym in Portland, Oregon uses this technology along with a holistic approach to conserving and producing energy. The following quote from a gym member encapsulates my speculation about using a digital feedback loop in order to motivate people to work out harder at my fitness park at the Howard Smith Wharves site.

Shoshana Zeisman, an academic adviser who lives six blocks from the Microgym, said the club’s “green features sold me as much as the location.” The Team Dynamo, which includes a digital display of the amount of watts produced, “is awesome,” Ms. Zeisman said. “It’s one more thing to motivate you.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/fashion/25gym.html?_r=2&ref=fashion&oref=slogin

People Powering Place

Here's the very cool part: the dance floor will be capable of generating 60% of the building's electricity. The technology involves building a sprung floor and power generating blocks. The blocks are made of piezoelectric crystals which produce current when subjected to pressure. Dancers dance, blocks are squeezed and the current is fed into batteries used to electrify the nightclub. Don't laugh, it is already being done in Rotterdam, Holland.

Reference http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/eco-nightclub-dancefloor-power.php

Piezoelectric technology is used in all sorts of applications from dance floors to tiles. Check out these vids

to see how it works

Inspiration / Exemplars

Interactive Architecture

What is interactive architecture?

Matthew T. Hume’s Warped offers experiments in plywood construction featuring a set of walls and arches composed from mechanically joined wood plys that change their shape in response to atmospheric moisture by twisting and bending between open and closed conditions

http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/

February 20th, 2010 Article by Ruairi (423)

Michael Fox and Miles Kemp have put together as they call it “a processes-oriented guide to creating dynamic spaces and objects capable of performing a range of pragmatic and humanistic functions. These complex physical interactions are made possible by the creative fusion of embedded computation (intelligence) with a physical, tangible counterpart (kinetics). A uniquely twenty-first century toolbox and skill set-virtual and physical modeling, sensor technology, CNC fabrication, prototyping, and robotics-necessitates collaboration across many diverse scientific and art-based communities.

First Thoughts

Enviro Lab Project - Week 4

Why did I choose this theme group?

The images and words on these theme poster resonate with me as I am very interested in architecture that is primarily concerned with environmental and social sustainability. I believe that a lot of architecture misses the mark completely when it comes to understanding peoples' needs.

There seems to be a movement afoot which marks a shift in focus from economic concerns to a more holistic approach incorporating community, individuals and the environment.