Paperwork Self-Sustaining House
of another set of two-axis-tracking parabolic reflectors. The steam is then expanded through a turbine to power an electric generator and an air compressor. Batteries and a compressed air tank store energy output. Final expansion of steam is through an ejector to create flash vaporization for chilled water and nontoxic refrigeration. Steam is condensed and stored as hot distilled water. With the help of soil-filled polypropylene socks, the cube’s outer shell becomes a greenhouse garden of drip-irrigated hanging herbs that give food, shade, and oxygen. Rooms are ventilated in a top-down cycle, with fresh air flowing in at the top, traveling down the building’s core, and exiting at ground level. Compressed-air-powered ceiling fans double as a sprinkler system in case of fire.
Bercy Chen Studio
Self-Sustaining House’s design optimizes a combination of rainwater retention and solar radiation collection methods, using a turbine-driven generator and compressor to satisfy all water and energy needs. It sits atop a fly ash concrete pedestal over a moat-like rainwater reservoir. This cube-shaped structure maximizes the ratio of internal space to surface area. Inside, its two floors are joined by a spiral staircase embedded in its inner core: a trussed tower containing a water tank — a heat sink, as well as a 20-day supply of water. Under the flat, glass roof, parabolic reflectors cradle copper pipes, preheating water that is then turned into steam with the aid
Weather Room LOJO (Logan and Johnson Architecture)
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22 Texas Architect
1/2 2015
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SUSTAINABLE HOUSE KEY 1 P OLYCARBONATE ROOF WITH INSULATED LOW-E GLASS CEILING 2 SOLAR REFLECTORS 3 OPERABLE CLEARSTORY 4 GREEN WALL 5 WATER TANK/HEAT SINK 6 LOW-E GLASS EXTERIOR WALL 7 CONCRETE FOUNDATION 8 OPERABLE WINDOW 9 RAINWATER RESERVOIR 10 SAND FILTER
What if a writer’s studio could be transported by helicopter to a series of inspirational locales? The Weather Room is such a place. Perched on a pedestal, with built-ins for books, a bed for naps and seating, and a writing desk that doubles as a couch, windows are this room’s forte: windows anywhere the head can swivel; windows that reveal sky above, trees around, and whatever territorial panorama awaits, out the front wall of the small box. This wall, a 15-by-10-ft plate glass window (whose proportions mimic that of a 3:2 film frame), is the Weather Room’s undisputed “dashboard,” reporting changing seasons, snow in the mountains, whitecaps out to sea, or waving wheat — according to where the room is planted. Minimalist multitasking is the name of this design game. The Weather Room is built with inexpensive insulated structural panels and is easily assembled in a few days. A small truck (or helicopter) can move it from site to site. As auxiliary studio, not full-on living space, it has no need of plumbing or electrical hookups. It can come to rest in back garden, forest, or orchard; by field or by stream; on a cliff or on the shore.