Archinect - News

MIT team tests open-source cooling chamber using 75% less energy than refrigerated cold rooms

2023-07-27T11:18:00-04:00

MIT researchers have published details of a new open-source forced-air evaporative cooling chamber. Described as being less expensive than refrigerated cold rooms, the chamber is intended to offer accessible cold storage for smallholder farmers, as well as significantly reduce post-harvest waste in hot and dry climates.

The chamber, which can be housed in a used shipping container and powered by either grid electricity or solar panels, has a capacity of 168 produce crates. The design uses industrial fans to draw in hot, dry air, which is passed through a porous wet pad. This creates cool, humid air that is directed through crates of produce, allowing rapid cooling. The air is then directed through the raised floor and to a channel between the insulation and the exterior container wall, where it flows to the exhaust holes near the top of the side walls.

The project was led by MIT Professor Leon Glicksman of the Building Technology Program within the Department of Architecture and Res...

SHoP’s Uber headquarters 'breathes' with smart accordion-style windows

2022-05-26T11:47:00-04:00

New York-based SHoP has completed work on the Uber Headquarters in San Francisco. The 423,000-square-foot project is divided into two buildings ranging between six and eleven stories, linked by two suspended walkways.

Photo © Jason O'Rear

The scheme’s star attraction is its active “breathing” façade composed of full-height windows. The computer-controlled system sees windows open and close in an accordion shape, with operable windows strategically placed at specific locations on the façade in response to wind and sun patterns. In addition to satisfying the building’s ventilation needs, the moving façade offers an ever-changing street scene throughout the day.

Photo © Jason O'Rear

Inside, the building’s perimeter is lined by a series of circulation and gathering spaces known as the Commons. The zones form a buffer area between the unconditioned atmosphere on the exterior and the controlled temperatures in the core workspaces, while “bringing the ...

Researchers create ultra-white paint that could cool buildings

2021-04-16T17:54:00-04:00

Scientists in the US have developed a paint significantly "whiter than the whitest paint currently available". Tests carried out by researchers at Purdue University on their "ultra-white" paint showed it reflected more than 98% of sunlight. That suggests, the scientists say, that it could help save energy and fight climate change.

The paint's whiteness opens up a range of cooling features that, applied at an industrial scale, could limit the built environment's contributing effect to global warming and its dependency on traditional air conditioning.

"If you were to use this paint to cover a roof area of about 1,000 square feet, we estimate that you could get a cooling power of 10 kilowatts. That’s more powerful than the central air conditioners used by most houses," predicts Xiulin Ruan, the Purdue professor of mechanical engineering, who led the research.

An infrared camera shows how a sample of the whitest white paint (the dark purple square in the middle) actually cools the board below ambient temperature. Credit: Purdue University/Joseph Peoples.

"Using high-accuracy temperature reading equipment called thermocouples, the researchers demonstrated outdoors that the paint can keep surfaces 19 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than their ambient surroundings at night," claims the study. "It can also cool surfaces 8 d...

France is cooling their streets with pavers made with shellfish waste

2018-12-05T17:27:00-05:00

In the main axis of the new multimodal hub in the French city of Nice, for the first time in Europe, a large expanse of urban cooling paving is being installed.

It corresponds to the areas of most intense pedestrian presence (bus stops, pavements, etc.) and represents an attempt to improve the thermal conditions of the urban space in a hot climate such as that of Nice.

It consists of an underground irrigation system controlled by exterior sensors that cool special breathable pavers, manufactured experimentally using mollusc shells.

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Is the Embr a true personal HVAC system?

2018-10-25T13:49:00-04:00

Five years ago we reported on a device invented by a group of students at MIT. This device, originally called "Wristify", was a small bracelet designed to heat or cool the wearer to achieve customized comfort, regardless of the surrounding environment. Today, after a few years of R&D, and with the help of a successful Kickstarter campaign, we have Embr, the newly designed and branded "Thermostat For Your Body".

The original "Wristify" prototype from MIT

The new hardware looks like a (very) large, faceless watch. The unit itself is an aluminum heat sink with a carved fingerprint-like series of waves on the outer surface, topped with a thin button/light bar indicating the current heating/cooling status. The strap is a steel mesh bracelet, very similar to Apple's Milanese Loop watch band (or a less expensive knockoff).

I've been trying out a review model for a few weeks, mostly testing out the cooling features since I live in LA. I've also given the heating feature a few opportunities t...

Air conditioning's challenge for the built environment

2018-08-16T16:14:00-04:00

The US expends more energy on air conditioning, for example, than the whole of Africa does on everything. Then again, it expends even more energy on hot water, which doesn’t get the same rap. The question then is not whether to condition climate, but how. As long ago as the 1940s the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy demonstrated, with his village of New Gourna near Luxor, how traditional techniques of orientation, ventilation, screening and shading could be revived.

Rowan Moore dives into the history of air conditioning and how the development of this technology shaped architectural design over the years. Rather than condemn its use, Moore advocates for optimizing both old and new techniques for sustainable cooling with the current challenge to scale up for rapidly expanding cities.

What would happen if LA replaced all its lawns with drought-tolerant landscaping?

2016-09-06T13:13:00-04:00

A new study by researchers at the University of Southern California found that replacing all lawns with drought-tolerant vegetation would have a net cooling effect of 0.2°C — but the science is less obvious than you might think. In fact, converting lawns has resulted in daytime warming of up to 1.9°C, mostly because of decreases in irrigation. But at nighttime, changes in soil thermodynamic properties, which strengthen sea breeze patterns, cool the city by 3.2°C.

In short, replacing all lawns would have significant, and beneficial, effects for public health. And, of course, it helps preserve already-scarce water supplies.

The study also seems to prove incorrect articles that suggested replacing lawns would make LA hotter.

For more on the on-going drought afflicting California, check out these links:

New Showers Installed at Auschwitz

2015-09-01T23:48:00-04:00

The management at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has defended the installation of sprinkler showers at its entrance, after a visitor complained that the new facilities were a painful reminder of the gas chambers used to murder prisoners.

Is Auschwitz now a theme park?

Is "Wristify" the solution for personalized heating/cooling?

2013-10-18T18:10:00-04:00

The intent is to save energy by controlling the temperature of an individual person, rather than an entire building, a goal that anyone who's ever turned on a personal space heater in a frigid office building in July can get behind. The team just won $10,000 from MIT's Making And Designing Materials Engineering Competition, which the inventors will use to improve the prototype and the algorithms that automate the pulses.

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.

Mongolia bids to keep city cool with 'ice shield' experiment

2011-11-15T18:01:47-05:00

Mongolia is to launch one of the world's biggest ice-making experiments later this month in an attempt to combat the adverse affects of global warming and the urban heat island effect. The geoengineering trial, that is being funded by the Ulan Bator government, aims to "store" freezing winter temperatures in a giant block of ice that will help to cool and water the city as it slowly melts during the summer.