Archinect - News

Getting to Zero Energy Housing

2020-02-21T17:48:00-05:00

At the rate we’re going, I fully expect, Zero Energy Ready Homes to become the norm by 2030, when tens of thousands of homes are certified each year or constructed under codes representing zero energy performance

Stacy Fitzgerald-Redd talked with Sam Rashkin, chief architect of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office, about the building blocks for achieving Zero Energy Ready Home certification, as well as the current and future state of adoption.

To learn more check out the 2018 Zero Energy Residential Buildings study by Net-Zero Energy Coalition / Team ZERO and the 2019 count of zero energy commercial buildings in the U.S. and Canada, by The New Buildings Institute.

Foster + Partners unveils future refuelling network design

2016-03-03T16:24:00-05:00

With over half of the world's population currently living in cities, and seventy percent of it predicted to be urban by 2050, Nissan and Foster + Partners have undertaken the design problem of creating a refuelling network that, among other things, allows electric cars to recharge wirelessly while parked in the street at night (or in work-station adjacent parking garages).

According to a press release, David Nelson, Foster + Partners' Co-Head of design stated, "Integrating zero emission technologies into the built environment is vital in creating smarter, more sustainable cities. That commitment must extend far beyond the car – it must sit at the heart of everything we do.”

Werner Sobek believes we could live in entirely renewable-energy-powered cities by 2020

2015-10-07T15:02:00-04:00

After building 2014's Aktivhaus B10, a house that generates twice as much energy as it uses for its own needs via renewable sources, architect Werner Sobek believes that we have all the technology we need to live in entirely emissions-free cities in only five years. He also understands that to make this shift, he will need the full support of the construction and automotive industries.

“The automotive industry is driving forward the creation of ever more powerful, longer-lasting batteries," Sobek said. "At the same time, the construction industry is working on such solutions as a retrofittable building automation system that can noticeably reduce the energy consumption of existing buildings in a very short amount of time.”

Sobek believes that the efficient city model could be brought into being via a "Sisterhood Principle" of data sharing, whereby multiple houses, even city districts, exchange information about what energy they are using, storing, and generating, and correspondingly ...

Saving face: Prêt-à-Loger designs solar-powered skin to preserve Dutch row houses

2014-02-26T18:13:00-05:00

How do you transform over 2 million Dutch terraced houses into more spacious, neutral-energy homes while they're still being inhabited? According to a team of TU Delft students, a solution to that is Prêt-à-Loger.

Translated to "ready to be lived in," the Prêt-à-Loger model was developed to preserve the historic Dutch row house, which was mass-produced for the middle class during the post-war period. The row house remains as the most common house typology in The Netherlands and is a cultural icon for many Dutch residents.

Trying to preserve and sustainably enhance the houses to modern-day standards, the Prêt-à-Loger team designed an adaptable "skin" made of solar panels and smart technology that can be applied to the house's facade. The skin can be customized to the various shapes and sizes of the homes.

The team recently celebrated the official kick-off of Prêt-à-Loger. With the support of partner organizations, they plan to implement the concept to a local neighborhood in Honselersdi...

The Stern-designed Kohler Environmental Center forces students to work with their zero-energy building

2013-03-20T17:53:00-04:00

The students were tapped in determining whether to invest in one or two clothes dryers. Would they use drying racks to eliminate the second dryer? Would they give up hair dryers? Would they wear sweaters in winter to permit an energy-saving thermostat setting of 67 degrees? “We don’t tell students that certain behaviors are unacceptable,” said Joseph Scanio, one of the center’s two live-in teachers. “We discuss things. We make it easy to be intentional about the choices you make.”