living in a scorched world
| sustainable solutions
[SAND studio]
The d3 Natural Systems competition calls for innovative proposals that advance sustainable thought and performance through the study of intrinsic environmental geome-tries, behaviors, and flows. By identifying, examining, and applying their structural order on form and function-bottom-up, performance-based solutions for limitless building typologies, functional programs, and material conditions may be realized.
Countless wildfires - called bushfires in Australia - burn across the continent every year.
In 2006 to 2007 in the state of Victoria in southern Australia, bushfires added around 105 million ton of carbon dioxide to the earth's atmosphere - more than a third of the country's CO2 emissions for a whole year. When the bush grows back, the young trees consume more water. As a result, over the decades after a fire, there are substantial reductions in the water yield from the catchments. As temperatures rise and bushfire frequency increases, the overall availability of water declines. Annual stream flow in Victoria is likely to fall by up to 48% by 2100. When water availability is low it is likely to impede economic development and human health. And of course the bushfires themselves kill: in just one day in 2009, 173 were killed as 2029 homes burned. There is very little individuals can do to stop the fires or produce more water. Individual homes are vulnerable unless they can be self-sustaining in the everyday and when disaster strikes.
This proposal investigates sustainable options available to single family dwellings in the hot and arid climatic conditions of rural Victoria. Inspired by, among many things, the Australian bush itself, the building is conceived as a breathing organism, which will react and adapt to the conditions through the bushfire cycle.
The proposal takes into account the issues of:
· Water as a scarce resource: The ability to harvest water is optimised by a dual-mode functionality: rain water harvesting on cloudy days and dew harvesting on clear nights. Harvested from an extendable roof the combined water yield is approximately ten times higher than from a traditional roof.
· Sustainability in cooling as a necessity: The cool surface of the harvested water is used together with a geo-thermal heat exchange to sustainably cool down the hot breezes and release it into the building from beneath. The cool air spirals up through the building by natural low-pressure suction and convection.
· Bushfires as a (bi-)annual certainty: The harvested water is also used to enable the dwelling to defend itself against ember attacks by drenching and sprinkling. The defence is not dependant on any active actions being taken to put out spot fires so the inhabitants are not forced to stay to defend their home, thereby potentially risking their lives.
· Opportunity to manage water harvesting, cooling and bushfire mitigation independantly: The above issues are dealt with as an integrated design scheme. There are no part solutions relying on external forces for success but rather a complete and independent strategy that can stand up to the challenges on its own.
The design consists of three basic building elements; the skin, the funnel and the burrow.
The skin is conceived as a flexible multi-functional facade and awning element; it will optimise rainwater and dew harvesting as well as direct the wind to serve various purposes. The skin is fixed between light-weight outriggers attached to tracks at the edge of the funnel. The tracks provide the manouverability of the outriggers to change the configuration of the skin.
Doubling as a roof, the funnel is the primary water harvesting and storage structure. While it is capable of holding large amounts of water in the dish it is also attached at the bottom to a water tank. It is fitted with an over-flow, stop valves and pumps from the water tank to ensure control of the water flow between the dish and the water tank.
The burrow is the actual living area spiralling around the funnel. Locating the dwelling underground has the advantages of superior protection in a bushfire of both the structure and the people in it. The spiral shaped layout optimises air-flow control and access to open air and day light by means of the central courtyard. The surrounding thermal mass of the soil is employed to reduce extreme temperature fluctuations.
The dwelling is self-reliant, considering water to be its solution, not its problem. It flourishes, even under hardship.
Countless wildfires - called bushfires in Australia - burn across the continent every year.
In 2006 to 2007 in the state of Victoria in southern Australia, bushfires added around 105 million ton of carbon dioxide to the earth's atmosphere - more than a third of the country's CO2 emissions for a whole year. When the bush grows back, the young trees consume more water. As a result, over the decades after a fire, there are substantial reductions in the water yield from the catchments. As temperatures rise and bushfire frequency increases, the overall availability of water declines. Annual stream flow in Victoria is likely to fall by up to 48% by 2100. When water availability is low it is likely to impede economic development and human health. And of course the bushfires themselves kill: in just one day in 2009, 173 were killed as 2029 homes burned. There is very little individuals can do to stop the fires or produce more water. Individual homes are vulnerable unless they can be self-sustaining in the everyday and when disaster strikes.
This proposal investigates sustainable options available to single family dwellings in the hot and arid climatic conditions of rural Victoria. Inspired by, among many things, the Australian bush itself, the building is conceived as a breathing organism, which will react and adapt to the conditions through the bushfire cycle.
The proposal takes into account the issues of:
· Water as a scarce resource: The ability to harvest water is optimised by a dual-mode functionality: rain water harvesting on cloudy days and dew harvesting on clear nights. Harvested from an extendable roof the combined water yield is approximately ten times higher than from a traditional roof.
· Sustainability in cooling as a necessity: The cool surface of the harvested water is used together with a geo-thermal heat exchange to sustainably cool down the hot breezes and release it into the building from beneath. The cool air spirals up through the building by natural low-pressure suction and convection.
· Bushfires as a (bi-)annual certainty: The harvested water is also used to enable the dwelling to defend itself against ember attacks by drenching and sprinkling. The defence is not dependant on any active actions being taken to put out spot fires so the inhabitants are not forced to stay to defend their home, thereby potentially risking their lives.
· Opportunity to manage water harvesting, cooling and bushfire mitigation independantly: The above issues are dealt with as an integrated design scheme. There are no part solutions relying on external forces for success but rather a complete and independent strategy that can stand up to the challenges on its own.
The design consists of three basic building elements; the skin, the funnel and the burrow.
The skin is conceived as a flexible multi-functional facade and awning element; it will optimise rainwater and dew harvesting as well as direct the wind to serve various purposes. The skin is fixed between light-weight outriggers attached to tracks at the edge of the funnel. The tracks provide the manouverability of the outriggers to change the configuration of the skin.
Doubling as a roof, the funnel is the primary water harvesting and storage structure. While it is capable of holding large amounts of water in the dish it is also attached at the bottom to a water tank. It is fitted with an over-flow, stop valves and pumps from the water tank to ensure control of the water flow between the dish and the water tank.
The burrow is the actual living area spiralling around the funnel. Locating the dwelling underground has the advantages of superior protection in a bushfire of both the structure and the people in it. The spiral shaped layout optimises air-flow control and access to open air and day light by means of the central courtyard. The surrounding thermal mass of the soil is employed to reduce extreme temperature fluctuations.
The dwelling is self-reliant, considering water to be its solution, not its problem. It flourishes, even under hardship.