As the dramatic changes to climate unfold before us it is becoming more evident that we will need to transform and adapt our ways of doing things to be more in alignment with the limitations of our ecosystems to support us, to ensure a balanced existence in the long term

Is climate change a technical or a cultural issue? As a society we do possess the knowledge and technological expertise to enable the design and construction of  zero carbon + LCA positive buildings  – but for the most part it seems that we choose not to.
This manual is intended to be a guide to assist the design student to navigate the complexity of topics & regulatory issues, and to understand the array of technologies and digital tools that are now available to the architectural designer in the effort to design buildings with as small an environmental footprint as possible, in a manner consistent with the existing regulatory regime.
The tools, techniques and examples presented in this manual are aimed at rural or remote sites where proposed designs have sufficient space around them to respond to their context. Sites within urban areas must respond to other design drivers – such as facing the street that they are located upon – that typically take precedence many environmental design drivers.

 

This intent of this document is to provide this information in a practical, direct manner. Where appropriate, links are provided to external references to facilitate further exploration of these topics. Where possible, case studies / examples of completed field work have been employed to provide realistic examples for the student. Consolidating access to all of this will provide a resource for students to consult,  to improve performance and responsiveness design strategies in response to site conditions into their design processes.

 

The book is divided into 7 Chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 provide an introduction to emerging technologies that can be utilized to gather data about  a site  and the capabilities of the emerging digital   tools and software to better understand and analyze this bio-geo-physical dataset that is now available to design professionals. to complement and in some instances to replace traditional design processes and workflows. Digital tools such as drones equipped with optical & digital technologies are used to gather this dataset that then can be utilized to generate output such as high resolution digital terrain models of a site  complete with detailed information on the adjacent tree canopy.

 

Climate responsive architectural design is covered in Chapter 3 – in this time of climate change, it is becoming increasingly important for design responses to be matched with the specificity of data available and to consider future climate parameters. Understanding how this data can be employed for Architectural purposes is also covered –  the dataset can also be used in conjunction with architectural design software to respond effectively to environmental drivers such as solar exposure and shading, views and daylight are also examined through  placing proposed designs within the digitally constructed site
Chapters 4, 5 and 6 address relevant regulatory aspects of the design of buildings – energy performance requirements in British Columbia are steadily increasing and the treatment and discharge of water are addressed as is an overview of the aspects of environmental / green building design standards such as LEED and others which focus on how buildings relate to the environment in which they are located.

Finally, an overview of design considerations that can impact the site,  and environment within the building are  included – such as strategies to reduce impacts, materiality concerns,  construction processes and life cycle analysis.

The compilation of the information contained within this document could not have been completed without the assistance and collaboration of 4 fellow BCIT instructors who have each contributed to their specific areas of expertise. Many thanks to Dr. Eric Saczuk, Jens Voshage, Jim Taggart, and Laurie Stott for their knowledge  and contributions and in particular for the shared view we all hold treasuring  the natural world

 

Ron Kato

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Environmental Design Guide for Architectural Students Copyright © by Ron Kato; Jens Voshage; Jim Taggart; Laurie Stott; and Eric Saczuk. All Rights Reserved.

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