Meter Building Research Paper

According to the authors of ‘2014 AIA COTE Top Ten Winner: Arizona State University Student Health Services Building’ Kim A. O’Connell, Katie Weeks, and Annie Milewski, “this project offsets 39 percent of its total energy costs through an onsite, 69-kilowatt photovoltaic array, and renewable energy certificates offset 35 percent of the building’s remaining consumption”. These all help with the sustainability factor and

Being environmentally friendly isn’t merely a trend. After thousands of years of using the earth’s resources, we have finally come to realize that we are destroying this beautiful gift we were honored with. Architects play an influential role in trying to preserve this gift by encouraging a multitude of strategies that can be more cost efficient in the long run, be more comfortable for its users, and most importantly, have a lower carbon footprint. Strategies can include drastic changes to heat and air systems, construction material selections, or even specific design details to the architecture of a building that would reduce the amount of energy it consumes.

Like states above, one of the changes made in the past couple years had been the addition of solar panels on top of the campus cafeteria. Although they’re small, it’s a step into the right direction towards renewable energy powering

Switching to solar panels will produce 8350 kilowatts per year, with 2 kilowatts per day, comparing to 11,879 kilowatts per year! Canadian citizens can replace standard light bulbs with fluorescent light bulbs. Fluorescent light bulbs use 75 percent less energy and they last 10 times longer! They can produce 17 watts/hour, while emitting much more light than a normal light bulb. (Ballad, T. (n.d.). How Much Do Energy Efficient Bulbs Save? | Home Guides | SF Gate, n.a., (2012.08.23) Top 10 Things You Can Do to Help - Information on Climate Change - Canada's Action on Climate Change.) Another strategy for individuals to help decrease the amount of GHG emissions would be including high-efficiency appliances apart of their lives. With the use of high efficiency appliances, 20 percent energy is being produced. In 2010, 2800 kilowatts were produced in households, and comparing to 20 years ago, 50 kilowatts were saved per year, which is 35 times better. (Appliances | Natural Resources Canada. (n.d) Therefore, Canadian citizens need to do more home at home to decrease the amount of global

Seeing that Prairie View A&M University is a small campus consisting of about 9,000 students you would believe that they are doing a lot of eco-friendly things, such as using energy efficient bulbs and having recycle bins placed near every trash can on campus. Becoming more sustainable can go way beyond the little things; the campus can install solar panels or installing a green roof. Solar panles use light energy from the sun to generate electricity through this effect called the photovoltaic effect. Installing solar panels can be very expensive, but in the end it’ll save the college a lot of money on their electricity bills. Solar energy is non polluting and it is emission free while generating electricty. Another advantage of using solar

A large overhanging canopy extends above the main glass structure to further conjure the image and feeling of a pavilion, and provide shade and protection from rain, snow, and ice. The roof is equipped with a louver system, enabling staff to adjust fan blades to allow more or less natural sunlight to penetrate through the ceiling, depending on the preferred temperature and time of year, much like the roof of the Verizon Center. Given the incredible amount of precipitation dumped on the Metro area last winter, engineers were forced to tweak the angle of the roof to make sure accumulated snow and ice loads could slide safely off. Thick, insulated, high performance glass

The University of Massachusetts Boston prides itself on its accomplishments when it comes to sustainability. The school is built on a landfill site and sustainability has been integrated as a guiding principle in the development of the university (1). Green design has been integrated into the development of the university’s campus center building as well as the new buildings being constructed and renovations being done following the master plan. UMBe Green is the university’s sustainability program which centers itself on the four areas of recycling, education, sustainability, and practice in order to move forward with sustainability (2). UMass Boston has been awarded the “University Sustainability Award” and the Massachusetts ECO-Award for Excellence in Commuting Options for its efforts thus far by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (2). Although the university has achieved some great goals there is always room for improvement. One problem that UMass Boston still faces on campus is energy consumption from light usage throughout the day. Though energy saving light bulbs are used throughout the campus, but the lights always seem to be on even when no one is in the classrooms or conference rooms. What UMass Boston should be addressing with this problem is what aspects of the building designs have to be changed, what has to be put into place in order to decrease the energy consumption from light usage on campus, and how this beneficial to the university.

It has outstanding natural light that occupies every corner. It is a beautiful, comfortable, and functional learning space, putting student’s needs first and also prioritized the environment through various eco-friendly measures. The building was made not just to impress, but also to teach. It contains various open beams, suspension systems, elevators with windows to see the shaft, and countless other tools to help professors show their students the elements of a well-constructed building. The structure evokes a feeling of prestige, making everyone feel welcome, and inviting visitors and occupants to observe various labs as they walk through the hallways. The building is a forward-learning facility, designed to inspire people to create and innovate. It is a focal point on campus, and a wonderful learning space for everyone fortunate enough to have a class or lab

However, when inspecting a building envelope, one has to be aware of the physical phenomena taking place and how the outdoor environment interacts with the indoors. During the day, the occurrence solar radiation on the outside surface of the building is absorbed and thus increase its surface temperature. As a result of the temperature difference between external and internal wall surface, heat is conducted through the wall. While at night, heat is dissipated from the wall external surface to the lower temperature environment by radiation. Therefore, to avoid the occurrence of solar radiation, the inspection should be done at night or during cloudy day with low wind speeds to minimise convective heat losses.

In the best-case scenario, the U of M golf course was transformed into a solar array, however in total these placements of solar arrays only generated 413 gigawatt hours per year, leaving ~87 gigawatt hours that would need to be generated in a different manner.

The curvature of the building uses the properties of daylighting in 60 degree north latitude, forming a reversal of the sun path; this curved section captures the horizontal sunlight. The curving walls change the room sizes, allowing daylight to enter from multiple ways. The curved “Wall of Ice” lets light thorough glass planks while horizontal light is deflected into the center, penetrating both upper and lower levels with light. The curved roof with the skylight “bowtie” allows light to distribute to the top level of the galleries. This interlaced torsion of space and light, make it possible for all of the twenty-five galleries to be naturally daylight .

Solar power is one of the most environmentally benign energy sources available. Just 20 days of sunshine produces the same amount of energy as everything stored in Earth’s reserves of oil, coal, and natural gas—yet does not come close to producing the same amount of environmental damage as even one of those options (Greentips, 2005). Solar farms are a clean renewable source that can meet high energy demands and can creates thousands of jobs in the future. It is also used during peak demand for electricity. During the hottest days, the panels are absorbing more energy while homeowners have the a.c. on full blast. They can be installed anywhere

Architects and building designers are exploring mixed-mode as a way of combining the best features of air-conditioned and naturally-ventilated buildings. When natural ventilation cant afford indoor comfort it switched to mechanical ventilation but revert to mechanical systems for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning when external conditions are deemed less favorable for occupants. this research aims to reach a design strategy to mixed mode system to go over the negative effect of air-condition buildings strategies during running passive strategies and overcome negative influence of passive design during running of mechanical system , we focus on Sun Shading Devices on building envelope performance including thermal control, air flow and Ventilation to reach optimum design.

The energy analysis for the Architecture Annex was run with the settings of a 24/7 school or university building. The location was set to Urbana, IL, and the HVAC system was set to the default type. The analysis showed that most energy would be used on fuel,

A central staircase is connecting indoor lobby at the ground floor and semi-shaded lobby at first floor, working as ventilation tower, the two level lobbies are always ventilated by a vertical and cross stream of fresh air, which is increasing the natural air circulation between house's levels, and guarantee a refreshing indoor effect (Figs15).