Category: Design

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Bjarke Ingels is a “Starchitect,” an international superstar architect. He is also a great storyteller and perhaps this is why he has risen to such prominence in recent years. People love stories.

Arguably, it is the narrative that people give to buildings that elevate them to “Architecture.” The trouble I have with most “Starchitecture” is that the narrative often appears to be whimsical, egocentric and divorced from environmental context.

Bjarke Ingels is a different kind of “Starchitect.” He offers a narrative where architecture embraces environmental context. His term for this is “Vernacular 2.0.”

Vernacular architecture arises out of a direct response to the climate it inhabits and the resources available locally. And this is exactly what the Passivhaus Standard aims to ensure in a contemporary context.

So what would happen if the two were combined? Can you imagine an architecture where the “Hedonistic Sustainability” of the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) delivered the radical energy efficiency and exceptional comfort of the Passivhaus Standard?*

I can.

The combination of Bjarke Ingels + Passivhaus, to my mind, truly would be a “Vernacular 2.0.”

025 Bjarke Ingels Passivhaus Vernacular
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This blog post is a review of “Passive House Design – Planning and design of energy-efficient buildings” published in September 2014. Author and architect Roberto Gonzalo (who also wrote the 2012 title “Energy-Efficient Architecture”) and passivhaus architect Rainer Vallentin collaborated on this valuable guide for architects and designers.

This is a timely book as the delivery of passivhaus architecture accelerates around the world. As the authors note, more and more architects are finding their way to passivhaus:

…simply because it is one of the most scientifically sophisticated and practical energy efficiency standards for buildings currently available.

Thorough introductory and background material is provided for those that are new to the Passivhaus Standard. This is followed by chapters dealing with a range of subjects in suitable detail for those already familiar with the standard. Well-illustrated case studies complement both the introductory and the more advanced content.

“Passive House Design” is an extremely useful book full of beautiful photographs, clear diagrams and detailed drawings. It maintains the very high standard of presentation and technical detail that can be found in all Detail magazines and books.

Passivhaus architecture depends on the design and construction quality of the building envelope. This book guides you in designing the building envelope.

023 Passive House Design building envelope
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Perhaps you’ve heard the oft-cited African proverb: “It takes a village to raise a child.” Passivhaus is similar; it takes a whole team to successfully deliver a passivhaus project. The Passivhaus Standard requires an integrated approach to design so everyone on the team needs to be involved and to play their part.

Structural engineers need to design structure integrated with, not compromising, the thermal envelope. Building services engineers need to design the building as a whole system not as discrete items of equipment added to a building. Architects need to be aware of building services and structure and how they integrate as elements of the architecture. The passivhaus designer needs to be aware of the building shape, form, structure, services, physics and more. And the list goes on; the team of professionals working closely together on an individual passivhaus project can be quite extensive.

And looking beyond individual projects, passivhaus professionals share many common interests and goals. They want to deliver buildings that live up to their promises. They want to help tackle climate change. And more often than not, they want to work together and help each other succeed. Whether it is on specific projects, at conferences, or on social media, passivhaus professionals are very active in honestly sharing mistakes, lessons learnt, best practice and latest developments. There is a very strong global passivhaus community.

Community is a reason to Love Passivhaus!

021 Love Passivhaus Community
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Architecture is often described as the combination of art and science. The role of art in architecture is understandably subjective and open to debate. However, what about the role of science in architecture?

Clearly buildings do obey the laws of science, as they must. And specifically, the structure and services of a building are calculated and designed using physics. Understandably, it is most often these areas of science that get expressed in architecture. We can see this, for example, in the structural expressionism of Santiago Calatrava or in the romanticised high-tech style of Richard Rogers.

Aside from structure and building services, however, does science inform architecture in any other ways? Perhaps not as often as it should! As I wrote about previously, design is central to passivhaus. And science is central to passivhaus design – at the macro level of form and orientation, and at the micro level of airtightness and thermal bridging.

Science is a reason to Love Passivhaus!

020 Love Passivhaus Science
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integrity
/ɪnˈtɛɡrɪti/
noun
1. the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.
2.the state of being whole and undivided.

Breaking promises damages your integrity. Do you make promises about the performance of buildings you design or construct? And do your buildings keep those promises?

Let me share a short story with you.

On a commission where I was the project architect, we reassured our clients that their new building would be super energy efficient, among other things. And yet, once the building had been handed over, I found myself in an embarrassing situation.

In a meeting with the clients, they put me on the spot and asked me why the energy bills were so high. No matter how many times I explained that the new building was much larger than their old building and had a lot more energy consuming equipment in it, there was no way out: in the clients’ mind we had not delivered on the promise of a super energy efficient building.

In fact, the new building was very energy efficient. However, we had never quantified what we meant by a “super energy efficient” new building. Therefore, the clients’ interpretation of this was lower energy bills and all they had to compare were the energy bills from their old building.

Needless to say, this project wasn’t a certified passivhaus building. Had it been, we could have given the clients an accurate prediction of what the (radically low) energy consumption would be. They would have had a good estimate of the expected energy bills. And the building would have performed as predicted. Our promise would have been kept.

Integrity is a reason to Love Passivhaus!

018 Love Passivhaus Integrity
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