Archinect - News

60 Minutes spotlights the importance of indoor air quality

2023-10-31T14:50:00-04:00

For the Harvard professor, founder of the university's Healthy Buildings Program, our building design and public health officials have ignored indoor air systems for too long – that is, until the COVID pandemic hit. [...] "If you look at the way we design and operate buildings –and I mean offices, schools, local coffee shop[s] – we haven't designed for health," Allen said. "We have bare minimum standards."

Professor Joe Allen, who also does consultation work for developers, recently advised on the Amazon ‘HQ2’ project in Virginia from NBBJ. He and his colleagues at Harvard’s Healthy Buildings Program center their work around six research areas (Homes, Schools, Business, Materials, Climate, and Infectious Diseases), noting that humans spend, on average, 90% of their lives indoors. The project leverages studies and empirical evidence that have roots in 19th-century public health design and is now being aided by research into the effects of ventilation on the spread of COVID-19.

"All else equal, which building are you gonna go to? You have your choice right now: This building that put in healthy building controls, or this building that's designed the way we've always designed buildings, and is prone to being a sick building?" Allen told 60 Minutes, speaking about post-pandemic market standards.

A list of tools and resources compiled for designers by the program can be found here.

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New York City's first geothermal apartment complex tops out in Coney Island

2023-05-31T08:11:00-04:00

LCOR, along with energy solutions company Ecosave USA, has topped out the first geothermal apartment complex in New York City. Located at 1515 Surf Ave. in Coney Island, this project stands as the city's largest district geothermal ground-source heat pump project to date. The system aims to decrease the building’s energy consumption by over 60% compared to structures equipped with standard HVAC systems.

The project, designed by STUDIO V Architecture, received partial funding from New York’s Community Heat Pump Pilot Program. This aligns with the state's goals towards net-zero climate emissions.

The building features an array of amenities such as an outdoor pool, fitness center, landscaped courtyard, indoor handball and basketball courts, tenant lounges, co-working space, and on-site parking. A portion of the building’s residences, 30%, is set aside as affordable housing.

The expected completion date for the construction of this building is in early 2024.

LMN Architects announces progress of its new Buxton Center for Bainbridge Performing Arts expansion and remodel

2023-04-11T11:36:00-04:00

LMN Architects is celebrating the near completion of its expansion and renovation of The Buxton Center for Bainbridge Performing Arts in Washington.

Located on Bainbridge Island, the new Buxton Center will create a stronger connection to the island by "reorienting its entry sequence to the axial plan of the island’s town square." The Center will have a wood and glass curtain wall that encloses a two-story lobby space. The lobby will serve as a way to immerse visitors within the surrounding woodland landscape. Adjacent to the center is a studio that will operate as a separate performance venue and will be the primary home of the Bainbridge Performing Arts Theatre School program.

“The original theater was a civic treasure for the island and a vital gathering space to celebrate the arts in the local community,” said LMN Architects Associate Erik Perka. “Throughout the design of the new building, our main goal was to preserve the intimacy of the theater while strengthening the connectio...

Opening of the anticipated International African American Museum pushed back due to climate control problems

2022-12-22T17:32:00-05:00

The International African American Museum (IAAM) in Charleston, South Carolina, will postpone its scheduled opening date next month due to unresolved climate control issues in its new building. The museum was expected to open on 21 January 2023 and now expects to open sometime in the first half of next year, according to a statement released on 16 December.

Construction of the Moody Nolan and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners-designed International African American Museum (IAAM) began in the fall of 2019 after nearly two decades of planning. In April, a request for additional funding was submitted to the city of Charleston in order to complete the genealogy center that’s planned for the museum. The board apparently had known about the HVAC issues for some time and is now planning a new special exhibition in the interregnum.

“I was as excited about this opening as everyone else,” museum President Tonya M. Matthews told supporters via email. “I am an overachiever and I am ambitious. I honor and respect things like deadlines, but this is a huge responsibility and we will do what we need to make sure that we present this museum and the stories we tell in an extraordinary light.”

Could reusing the condensate from air conditioners be a feasible solution to mitigating water scarcity?

2021-05-21T15:41:00-04:00

What do a handful of Microsoft Corporate offices, the Austonian in Austin, the University of Arizona's College of Architecture, Planning & Landscape Architecture building, and San Diego International Airport (SAN) have in common? Each building practices air conditioner condensate reuse for alternative irrigation methods, cooling, and water conservation efforts.

While these are a few examples of buildings around the globe adopting this practice of water reuse, professor Jonathan Bean from the University of Arizona's College of Architecture, Planning & Landscape Architecture explains the realistic outlook on condensate reuse. "Reusing condensate is important but not a critical piece in counteracting climate change," he shared with Chris Malloy of Bloomberg CityLab. Instead, Bean believes there are more effective strategies out there like "making buildings smaller and reconsidering refrigerants."

Image © har__q via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

"While the water volume from air conditioners h...

The safest pandemic spaces are well ventilated

2020-08-11T16:27:00-04:00

In the months since the COVID-19 pandemic arrived across the world, much attention has been placed on how easy it is for the virus to spread in indoor spaces that lack proper ventilation.

Writing in the academic journal The Conversation, Shelly Miller, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, adds to a growing body of research highlighting the need for a greater degree of interior ventilation in order to help minimize the spread of the disease. Professor Miller writes, "The safest indoor space is one that constantly has lots of outside air replacing the stale air inside," adding, "Many buildings in the U.S., especially schools, do not meet recommended ventilation rates."

Previously on Archinect: "'Hygiene ventilation' and the case for Green Stimulus." Image courtesy of Image by Erich Westendarp from Pixabay.

Miller recommends that building operators move to increase air exchange rates within interior spaces to nine times per hour, up from the standa...

How is Philadelphia's convention center adapting to the pandemic age?

2020-08-04T14:12:00-04:00

Conventions and trade shows are now wrestling with the same challenges facing schools, religious groups, and professional sports. Whenever large numbers of people gather indoors, in tightly enclosed spaces with mechanical air circulation, odds are that spikes in coronavirus infections will follow.

Inga Saffron, architecture critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer, probes some of the existential questions facing large urban convention centers, massive facilities that have had their spatial and economic potentials deeply challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Saffron reports on efforts to upgrade and retrofit the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia for the pandemic age as digital and alternative forms of professional and academic gatherings begin to take root in response to the need for social distancing.

Cushing Terrell develops approach for adapting standard hospital patient rooms into negative pressure zones

2020-07-09T12:21:00-04:00

Multidisciplinary design firm Cushing Terrell has developed a solution for air circulation and ventilation in patient and operating rooms to prevent the spread of infection. The solution, developed by the firm's mechanical engineering team, enables standard hospital patient rooms to be converted from positive pressure to negative pressure.

Mode 2: Normal operations / 50% outside air.

"Negative pressure rooms are designed to contain a patient’s breathing within the room, helping to prevent the spread of airborne viruses and disease. When a patient who is suspected to have, or is diagnosed with COVID-19, the availability of rooms like these becomes critical to protecting other patients in the hospital," said Shawn Murray, Principal at Cushing Terrell who leads the mechanical engineering group.

Mode 3: Normal operations / 100% outside air.

In developing this response to existing ventilation issues, the team began with collaborating with Billings Clinic facility staff to assist them in co...

"Hygiene ventilation" and the case for Green Stimulus

2020-05-04T13:29:00-04:00

As society plans its transition out of the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic response and into a new era of social distanced, post-quarantine life, the gradual re-inhabitation of existing buildings will necessitate that many aspects of daily life be re-examined, both in terms of social custom and functional layout.

Lecture halls and performance spaces that once held hundreds will now accommodate dozens; High-rise office buildings will see their capacities drastically reduced, as well; Grocery aisles will be redesigned to allow for more space between shoppers; Restaurants could see their dining rooms transported outdoors; Banks, post offices, government buildings, and all sorts of commercial, cultural, and entertainment facilities will likely, either periodically or for a period of time moving forward, will be impacted by this shift.

Previously on Archinect: "MASS Design Group brings pandemic design expertise to American hospital wards." A diagram showing interventions that the ...

The architecture of virus transmission: Researchers propose new method for treating airborne pathogens

2020-03-27T15:59:00-04:00

The built environment often shapes the spread of disease. Many early cases of COVID-19, the 2019 novel coronavirus, centered on a seafood market in Wuhan City, China. Airports, hospitals and other gathering points can easily become sites of virus transmission.

But as the medical community grapples with the COVID-19 outbreak — which has ballooned from a few dozen cases in December to more than 120,000 worldwide — a group of researchers led by Hongxi Yin at Washington University in St. Louis is exploring whether using portable furnaces to sterilize contaminated building exhaust might help to stem the contagion.

Paramedics working to isolate patients infected with COVID-19. (Photo: Shutterstock)

“Since ancient times, humans have used fire to fight infectious disease,” said Yin, the InCEES associate professor in advanced building systems and architectural design in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Indeed, he pointed out, temporary treatment centers in Wuhan (which formally clo...

Kate Murphy examines why America is so over air-conditioned

2015-07-21T00:09:00-04:00

Commercial real estate brokers and building managers say sophisticated tenants specify so-called chilling capacity in their lease agreements so they are guaranteed cold cachet...There’s also the widely held misconception that colder temperatures make workers more alert and productive

Google saves energy by cooling its buildings with ice

2012-04-05T15:04:00-04:00

Google’s new $700 million data centers in Taiwan will make ice at night, when electricity is significantly cheaper, and use it to cool the buildings during the day, reports Rich Miller at Data Center Knowledge. It’s called thermal storage, and it’s basically a battery, but for air conditioning.

Cool by design

2011-07-14T22:14:03-04:00

Many of the central changes in our society since World War II would not have been possible were air conditioning not keeping our homes and workplaces cool. Florida, Southern California, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, and New Mexico all experienced above-average growth during the latter half of the 20th century -- hard to imagine without air conditioning

Over Rebecca Rosen explores how one technology, air conditioning, made modern America what it is. From cooling our rooms, to shaping what our houses look like, and where we build them, "the advent of air conditioning has shaped our homes and family life as well".