The Architecture of the City

Located in Tenerife, one of the most populated islands in Spain, the second prize winning proposal for the ITER Building Technology Park settles in like a crater, relating to its volcanic surroundings.

Estudio Lunar‘s design consists of two elements, the first one contains the program which is situated in the terrain interacting with it; and the second element that is situated over the terrain and only touches it to create the main access in the north protecting the building from the prevalent winds coming from the north-east.

 

The roof of the building offers 2800 m2 for solar panels with the peak conditions. On the underground floors we have the most essential natural energetic systems: natural isolation, solar protection, cross ventilation, and thermic inertia. The underground levels take advantage of all the energy accumulated in the ground as a natural isolation, keeping a stable temperature during all the year without needing any additional energy contribution. The small courtyards system that organizes the program underground offers natural light and cross ventilation to renew the air inside...

Via Lauren Moss

A proposal imagines 300,000 housing units built into six hyper-energy efficient domes.

This year Istanbul Design Week goes back to the future with a very ambitious project: HavvAda, a cutting-edge net-positive-energy residential island conceptualized by New York-based Studio Dror.

HavvAda, will be built off the shore of Istanbul using excavated soil from a new massive canal planned between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara.

 

For the design, Dror has drawn on spatial geometry, as well as Buckminster Fuller’s legacy in structural engineering and Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City. Six months of intensive dialog with a team of experts have allowed Dror to realize an ambitious concept that offers a high quality of life and helps the environment.

The island is envisioned as a landscape of six residential hills, surrounding a circular valley dedicated to parks and recreation, supported by a mega-dome structure, allowing for a “three-dimensional grid” that aims to maximize energy and structural efficiency.

 

Read the complete post to learn more about the process and design of the integrated renewable energy system, water recycling, as well as efficient heating and cooling (which allow the community to produce more energy than it consumes).

Also, read further to find additional images and diagrams of how these systems and concepts function in the context of this innovative and ambitious project.

Via Lauren Moss, Paulo Camargo, Cynthia Morgan

C. F. Møller Architects have designed a proposal for the pilot-project Housing+, for 60 zero-energy housing units on the Aalborg Waterfront. The design adhered to stringent energy goals through a combination of architectural design and user-focused technical innovation.

The Housing+ concept sets the ambitious target of a zero-energy housing scheme, which also includes the tenant’s primary household energy consumption. The complex will thus be 100% relying on renewables.

Central to the concept is the use of integrated energy-design to generate the concept of tomorrow’s housing, producing more energy than it consumes. This is achieved by optimizing the inherent passive gains of the main volume, and shaping it to take advantage of the orientation and potential for active solar energy-collection.

 

Visit the link for more images and details on this contemporary, green design that incorporates solar, passive strategies, and on-site renewable energy.

Via Lauren Moss, Territori