Materials in Harmony

Smarter Glass?

2005-12-02T12:22:00.000-08:00

Vendors at the AIA convention had many products that were not specifically green, but they may conserve energy. We spoke with one vendor that offers glazing that can be changed from transparent to opaque at the flip of a switch. This product can save energy costs because of its ability to adapt to changing daylight and seasons. Currently this product uses electricity and requires human intervention to change the opacity. However they are developing a glazing panel that will be able to change on its own by the use of solar power and lighting sensors. The idea of the transparency of a glazing being able to change throughout the day to accommodate the changing sunlight is amazing. Similar technology has existed for years with tinted eye glasses that change, however large scale installations will be a little more complicated. Since this product is not yet on the market, it is hard to anticipate the issues or popularity that will follow this new glazing panel.

An Interview with Billy Weber

2005-12-02T08:11:00.000-08:00

Billy Weber is a professor and researcher at the University of Minnesota, who has been working on the development of a number of sustainable houses. I spent some time talking with him about what the hundreds of new sustainable products on the market mean to the practice of architecture. We spent a great deal of time talking about where the liabilities actually fall.
Liability is dependent upon the promises made. Sometimes, architects choose to design a product themselves, have it engineered, tested, and fabricated. In this case, the liability is contingent upon the type of failure that happens. If the product fails because of how it is made, then the fabricator endures the associated costs. If, however, the product fails because of how it is detailed into the building, then it may be the responsibility of the architect or the engineer. In this type of design, the costs of developing and testing new products are endured by the budget of the client.
Another way of designing is to find products that are already on the market, that also fit the design goals of the project. These products, like the ones featured at Treehugger.com, are developed and sold with certain promises of performance. The costs associated with the testing and certification are endured by the product manufacturer. One of the difficulties of this process is that the products are tested under very specific conditions that may not be exactly what the designer wants the product to do. Billy Weber gave the example of some OSB panels that they are using in the Wilder house. These panels were tested and certified in a vertical orientation. If they wanted to use them in a tipped orientation or a horizontal orientation, the test numbers don't change, but the liability does. They would then be taking on this as a liability because the manufacturer hasn't gone through the process of certifying the product to work in this way. The panels are perfect for many different uses, but the testing simply hasn't been done, therefore the liability hasn't been established.
One of the other issues that we discussed was the knowledge base that builders have about the hundreds of new sustainable materials on the market today. While he agreed that it will be more difficult and costly to build with new products, he didn't feel that it was all that much different than any other new product on the market. It is fairly common to have designers putting new products into buildings, and this process of learning is normal in the building process.There is a distinction between building types, though. It is more likely for a large commercial project to be able to take the time to develop and learn about some of these products, than a smaller contractor that builds houses. Residential homes are fairly straightforward in their construction, and the budget is very tight. It is fairly difficult to do anything truly innovative, especially if it involves a great amount of research. However, usually in commercial projects, the buildings tend to be one-offs. That is, there are many aspects to them that are unique and require a fair amount of research to understand and implement. It is not only easier to innovate in this size of a project, it is expected.

Thanks to Billy Weber for his time and insight!!

Small Firm, Small Budget. Now what?

2005-11-28T11:15:00.000-08:00

Previously we explored a firm that has the resources to test and use new products in their designs, but what happens in a small firm that doesn’t have the resources or the budget to explore new materials and has a lot of low budget projects?

In a low budget project, the challenge is how to make an attractive building with lower quality products chosen from a catalog rather than high end custom products. As students we are not confronted with the idea of a budget, but in the real world it is a real issue. The first project I worked on at my current firm was a low income town house development. It needed to relate to higher income housing in the same development. The goal was to fit as much program into a small town house and make the exterior elevations relate to the neighboring housing and still remain within budget. When the elevations were started there were many decorative elements that had to be eliminated because of cost, such as high quantities of brick and decorative trim.

By the bid set and construction documents, only a few units had brick for the entire front façade, while most units eliminated the brick or only had it up to the second floor. By only having brick on the front facades it decreased the cost considerably. The window trim had also changed because the budget. We decided to have more uniform sizes of trim and eliminated all decorative elements from the back and sides, in order to keep some decorative elements on the front elevations. All of the windows were chosen from a catalog of middle to low priced company. Bay windows and transoms were used to individualize some of the units. Since they were chosen from a catalog, they were less expensive than getting custom sizes made. The neighboring town homes were clad in painted cement board siding, while our project had to settle for vinyl siding. We used different colors to distinguish each residence. The siding colors matched the colors of paint used on the cement board as requested by the developer.

Although the materials may have been compromised in order to remain within budget, the design was quit nice. Our firm had a limited budget and had to use more inexpensive materials than the neighboring town homes, but our elevations were still comparable in design. Inexpensive materials, although limiting, can make an attractive project if they are used within other design elements.

Green Products & Specifications

2005-11-18T06:02:00.000-08:00

Good Morning Minneapolis!
The AIA convention was great and really had a lot to offer Materials in Harmony this week. The talk about Green Products was focused on how to weave through the delicate process of choosing green materials and still watch your back. We all know that new materials can be a risk as professionals and there are a few ways to make sure that our green choices are not only right for the environment but also right for our business. Here are some tips!

1. Make sure that of all the green labels out there you implement one that is truly green. This will ensure that your risk is worthwhile.

2. Get to know companies that sell or use these products. These relationships will help ensure that you are getting what you expected and that you can trust the product.

3. Make sure that specifications are followed on the job site. Too many times contractors will not fully understand the spec or they will completely ignore new materials or building methods. A few more site visits could make all the difference!

Again, these are ways to ensure the worth of your risk. Always do your homework before implementing any new material so that you will lessen the risk!

Thanks for tuning in
-Materials in Harmony

Green @ the AIA Exhibition

2005-11-18T06:01:00.000-08:00

The number of alternative materials were few at the Exhibition Hall this year. We did run into a few venders that dealt with green roofs, both passive and aggressive systems. This material may not constitute as alternative materials because it is being used all over the world, however, there must have been some liability issues in its infancy. One salesman we spoke with didn't know who would be responsible if something were to go wrong. Who would pay for damages of a leaking roof? The manufacturer, the architect, the contractor?
These are all important questions.....anyone have any comments about these risks and how to minimize them? Better yet, avoid them entirely?

Building Green?

2005-11-03T20:28:00.000-08:00

Another great website that gives us a look at sustainable materials and their relationship to design within the practice. Need information on the practicalities of using green materials in a project?

Embodied Energy

2005-11-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

One of the ways in which materials will increasingly be thought of in the future is through the concept of embodied energy. This concept, that has been around since the 1960's, suggests that in order to understand the impact that materials are having on the environment, we have to look at the total amount of energy that it takes to extract it, ship it, process it, ship it again, package it, ship it, sell it, and once again ship it again to your home. Then, there is the use of the product, then it must be shipped again to a waste center, where it meets the earth again.

It becomes the study of a material that goes beyond it's immediate use, but taking responsibility for the entire (cradle to grave) lifespan of the material. Consumers of these goods must become more aware of the true costs of the products they are using. In our contemporary society most people are completely unaware of the complexity of processes that go into the simplest of things. For example, metal soda can contains a variety of metals, coloring agents, and plastic linings that ultimately come from different parts of the earth somehow, as does the soda itself. All of these different elements come together in different manufacturing processes and transported thousands of miles. It is difficult to think of this when one spends only a few minutes using this can, then discards it into a landfill, but there is an inconcievable amount of energy spent on simply getting that can of soda into your hands.

In architecture, many firms are now doing lifecycle assessments of the products that they are buying. They are attempting to understand how we can lessen the impact of the materials that we use, but it is as incredibly complex as it is time consuming. In many ways, it makes all materials newly experimental. While some firms spend money trying to develop provocative new materials, others are simply trying to gain a deeper understanding of the materials that we are already using.

Doing lifecycle assessments becomes a giant balancing act between what things are less bad. Everything has an effect on the environment. Depending on what the need is, some materials will perform better that others. However, the materials that perform the best will probably also be difficult to procure, manufacture, and transport. Steel as a material for spanning long distances may be difficult to get, manufacture, and transport. However, its strength may make it more sustainable than doing the same span in wood or stone.

It is virtually impossible to know all of the complexities of the products that we use in our buildings. However, it also seems crucial to expand our understanding of the effects of these products. Architects are massive consumers. It has been estimated that 40% of the material in our landfills is from construction waste. This suggests that our efforts are directly tied to our ability to sustain ourselves on this planet. The added expense of this lifecyle cost analysis is becoming one of those things that simply becomes necessary as our planet becomes more and more threatened.

I couldn't help but think of the experience I had this past August at Chaco Canyon, in northwest New Mexico. The Anasazi people of nearly a thousand years ago built these great stone houses, some of which had as many as 700 rooms in them. They did it without the help of modern machinery, and they had to endure the cost of transporting stone over a distance. As I stood in an enormous complex of spaces, looking at a single 2" long by 1/4" thick stone in the wall, I was in awe of the amount of labor it must have taken to make this happen. In reality, it is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of energy we spend today upon the acquisition, manipulation, and use of materials in today's society.

-WCW

Experimental Metal Screens

2005-11-02T02:14:00.000-08:00

Recently we had a conversation with Joan Soranno and John Cook of Hammel, Green, and Abrahamson, Inc. Our conversation, though not focused on sustainability, was about the costs, risks and liabilities that a practice assumes when using experimental materials. HGA was the Architect of Record on the Walker Art Center expansion project and the primary architects for the United Theological Seminary Bigelow chapel. In both cases, they had to go through exhaustive testing to prove the viability of a material such that they could realize a new expression.
The skin of the Walker expansion was originally concieved of through making paper cut outs, not unlike the kind children make. As a response to the heaviness of the original Barnes building, the new addition was to be lightweight, almost floating. Their first response was to make it out of a Teflon fabric. Herzog & de Meuron, after many smaller tests decided to make a full size mock up in Basel, Switzerland, and have the Walker, HGA, and various consultants come to see it. The idea was that they would see it during the daytime, then go out for a late dinner and come back at midnight and flip the lights on to create a very impressive glowing surface that would become the light box that they desired. Richard Flood, chief curator, explained what actually happened, "They threw on the lights, and this wall of insects just laid into the Teflon. There were more corpses than you could count! It was...like walking over jelly...like some bad sci-fi thing." With deadlines looming, they decided scrap the entire fabric idea and to experiment with 4' square metal panels.
They ended up using a 3' 9" anodized aluminum mesh panel that is stamped in such a way that gives the appearance of crinkled paper. There are actually only four panels that are randomly rotated in four different directions creating sixteen different combinations of edge connection. John Cook explained two of the many tests that these new panels went through to verify their safety. Primarily, their concern was the constant deflection that would be incurred by the panels due to wind loads. The panels are a wire mesh, that has been stamped into a crinkled shape. The process of stamping causes a weakening of the aluminum at the fold points, and the constant movement due to wind aggravates this weakened condition. They had calculated that they needed to be able to get around 2 million deflections of about 2" at the center of the panel without any breaks in the mesh. This would simulate 30 years of a constantly shifting 30 mile per hour wind. The test machine amounts to two pillows on either side of the aluminum panel that constantly pushes back and forth until there is a break. Each cycle takes about 1 second, amounting to a process that takes several months to complete. They got their first break at 260,000 deflections - a far cry from the 2 million that they wanted.
They then went through a long process of finding the right combination of alloys to get the ideal ratio between strength and flexibility. They also had concerns about the effect that the degree of openness of the mesh was having on the amount of deflection. Some people thought that the ability of the air to move through the mesh was actually causing an increase in the distance of the deflection, because of a possible vacuum on the back side. One of the engineers took a less sophisticated approach to analysing this issue by strapping one of these four foot panels onto the front of his pickup truck, and speeding down interstate 94, having his 16 year old son measuring the deflection. They found no surprises.
One other issue that they were trying to resolve was how the new panels would do in the winter. Minnesota can have incredibly difficult weather conditions in the winter, sometimes involving large amounts of ice. This thin lightweight panel needed to be able to support an inch of ice on both sides without coming apart. Ice is incredibly heavy and the panel had to be tested for this as well. It was done by pouring a resin down the front of the panel and allowing the resin to run off of the bottom. This resin eventually created a surface that could be attached to and pulled on to simulate the weight of different ice loads.
This building charted many new territories, including a structural feat that has never been done before. Here we concern ourselves with only one part of the larger discussion. We feel that this building, that represents what many would call unsustainable design, is worthy of discussion because there are thousands of new "sustainable" materials on the market that are virtually untested. There are liability and ethical issues involved in using materials whose waters have not been tested. We suspect that architects, and more importantly developers, resist using these materials largely because the enormous expense of testing them makes it economically prohibitive. While these products may be beautiful, healthier and less destructive to the environment, they are ultimately too costly in time and money.
The Walker addition represents a situation where experimentation was acceptable. It is in the nature of the designers, as well as the clients. However, the bulk of the built world is not created this way. The buildings that are constructed according only to the rules of economy will likely never engage these materials on their own accord. How will this change take place? If the world is truely being threatened by our destructive building practices, how will we be able to make the sustainable choice when this is the most costly and unproven route? Those that believe in it will make the choice, but these people are generally not in the decision making position of the developer, who is making many large scale projects.
Sustainability is a much larger topic than simply the material choices. However, we are only taking up this portion of the issue as an attempt to focus the thought a little. Simply thinking about materials raises many large issues including what it takes to aquire, manufacture, test and assemble these materials. There are cultural and environmental concerns for all of these issues that we would love (you) to write about.

-WCW

The Process of Exploring New Materials

2005-10-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

The long process of testing unfamiliar materials can bring incredible results to the firms that are patient enough to explore these new options. We have seen some of these firms in architectural publications and admire their hard work. Although not all firms are publicly recognized for their work, we are curious about the process of exploring new materials. We open this section of the blog to firms that would like to share their stories of how their building came to be. Please include information about the testing of interesting materials and failures you may have encountered, as well as, experiences with the contractors who installed the new materials and cost issues.

Share a Website

2005-10-25T13:21:00.000-07:00

Sustainable (green) Building website is a good introduction to Sustainable Buildings. It gives a general overview of the benefits of using sustainable materials including Resource efficiency, indoor air quality, energy efficiency, water conservation, and affordability.

Download this PDF to see how materials were applied to The Cleveland Environmental Center. Each material or process has a brief description of the product and its benefits. To download please click on the link at the right side of the page.
www.clevelandgbc.org/cec/images/PDarticle03-11-03.pdf

Green Building Services, Inc. is a consulting firm that deals with helping clients create green buildings. They use the LEED rating system to make environmentally friendly projects.

Statement of Interest

2005-09-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

Starting with the assumption that choices in building materials is a critical part of the design process, this journal has the goal of creating discussion about the impact of sustainable building materials upon the practice of architecture. Throughout the history of architecture, builders have stretched the limits of materials, frequently becoming experts in a single material. Tado Ando has a deep understanding of the material, structural, and expressive qualities of concrete. Similarly, Frank Gehry knows the unique properties of sheet metal, thereby allowing him to push metal into forms previously unachieved.
In the contemporary world, where sustainable building design is fundamental, there is a plethora of new companies producing green products that are new, relatively untested, and potentially disastrous to the health of a building. On the other hand, many of these products may be quite appropriate to use, but how does practicing architect safely enter this sea of new materials? What can be learned from firms like Tado Ando’s firm in the deep exploration of a material, but in terms of sustainable design? What liability issues exist when one is pushing the capabilities of a new material like bamboo? The unknowns, affect contractor relationships as the builders may not have a good knowledge base to work with. Furthermore, these products, simply due to their newness will likely drive up installation, liability, and consultant costs.
Architects generally design for the mental and physical health of users of their buildings. We are making the assumption that the deep understanding of materials will greatly affect the success of a firm. We are looking at practice based issues in which new materials play in the expression of ideology, through the lenses of sustainable and health based design.