SU+RE

In the 21st century, architects and engineers are being challenged to produce work that is concurrently sustainable and resilient. Buildings need to mitigate their impact on climate change by minimising their carbon footprint, while also countering the challenging new weather conditions. Globally, severe storms, extreme droughts and rising sea levels are becoming an increasingly reoccurring feature. To respond, a design process is required that seeks to integrate resiliency by building in the capacity to absorb the impacts of these disruptive events and adapt over time to further changes, while simultaneously being part of the solution to the problem itself.

This issue of AD is guest-edited by the interdisciplinary team at Stevens Institute of Technology who developed the winning entry for the 2015 US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition, the SU+RE House. While particular focus is paid to this student designed and built prototype home, the publication also provides a broader discussion of the value of design-build as a model for tackling the issue of integrating sustainability and resilience, and what changes are required across education, policy, practice and industry for widespread implementation.

Contributors include: Bronwyn Barry, Michael Bruno, Alex Carpenter, Adam Cohen, Ann Holtzman, Ken Levenson, Brady Peters, Terri Peters, Karin Stieldorf, Alex Washburn, Claire Weisz, and Graham Wright.

Featured architects: 3XN/GXN, FXFOWLE Architects, Local Office Landscape Architecture (LOLA), Lateral Office, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Snohetta, Structures Design Build, and WXY Studio.

Chapter 1 Introduction Climate Change is the New Gravity

Chapter 2 Unsustainability and the Architecture of Efficiency

Chapter 3 Resilient Design: Systems Thinking as a Response to Climate Change

Chapter 4 Global Responses to Local Conditions: Sustainability and Resilience are Nowhere the Same

Chapter 5 Global Warming is Real: Superstorm Sandy, Stevens and the SU+RE House

Chapter 6 High-Performance Enclosures: Designing for Comfort, Durability and Sustainability

Chapter 7 Practical Resilience: Low-Tech Plug-and-Play Innovation in the SU+RE House

Chapter 8 SU+RE Power: Energy Independence and the Sustainable Resilient Sun

Chapter 9 Modelling to Drive Design: Honing the SU+RE House through Performance Simulations

Chapter 10 Defining Environments: Understanding Architectural Performance through Modelling, Simulation and Visualization

Chapter 11 Data Buildings: Sensor Feedback in Sustainable Design Workflows

Chapter 12 Building Physics, Design, and the Collaborative Build: Sustainability and Resilience in Architectural Education

Chapter 13 Climate Change and the Bottom Line: Delivering Sustainable Buildings at Market Rate

Chapter 14 Energy and Design Criticism: Is It Time for a New Measure of Beauty?

Chapter 15 The Design of Public Policy: Sustainability and Resilience at the City Scale

Chapter 16 Counterpoint – Aim High: Pressing for a Radical and Global Approach to Sustainable Design

Contributors

About Architectural Design

John Nastasi is the Director of the Product-Architecture Lab at Stevens Institute of Technology and Principal of award-winning Nastasi Architects. In 2015, he led the team of faculty and students at Stevens Institute that designed the SU+RE House, the winner of the US Department of Energys Solar Decathlon. Ed May isIndustry Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology and a Passive House Consultant with BuildingType. He was the project manager for the SU+RE House. Clarke Snell is Visiting Assistant Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology. A researcher, designer and author, he was the faculty construction manager for the SU+RE House project.

January/February 2018
Profile 251 Volume 88 No 1
ISBN 978 1119 379515

Guest-Edited by John Nastasi, Ed May and Clarke Snell

In the 21st century, architects and engineers are being challenged to produce work that is concurrently sustainable and resilient. Buildings need to mitigate their impact on climate change by minimising their carbon footprint, while also countering the challenging new weather conditions. Globally, severe storms, extreme droughts and rising sea levels are becoming an increasingly reoccurring feature. To respond, a design process is required that seeks to integrate resiliency by building in the capacity to absorb the impacts of these disruptive events and adapt over time to further changes, while simultaneously being part of the solution to the problem itself.

This issue of AD is guest-edited by the interdisciplinary team at Stevens Institute of Technology who developed the winning entry for the 2015 US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition, the SU+RE House. While particular focus is paid to this student designed and built prototype home, the publication also provides a broader discussion of the value of design-build as a model for tackling the issue of integrating sustainability and resilience, and what changes are required across education, policy, practice and industry for widespread implementation.

Contributors include: Bronwyn Barry, Michael Bruno, Alex Carpenter, Adam Cohen, Ann Holtzman, Ken Levenson, Brady Peters, Terri Peters, Craig Robertson, Karin Stieldorf, Alex Washburn, Claire Weisz, and Graham Wright.

Featured architects: 3XN, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM), FXFOWLE Architects, Local Office Landscape Architecture, Lateral Office, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Structures Design/Build, and WXY architecture + urban design.