green giant - Sustainability Workshop

ID : 24384-1391184732734
GREEN GIANT
Concept
Green Giant comes from the simple idea of shaping the soil into strips. The movement it
creates allows different ways of urban appropriation and introduces a variety of new local
functions. Culinary spaces and performance areas for the local arts are enhanced in order to
generate new iconic elements in the existing industrial landscape of South Bronx.
The spatial and organizational planning of these neighbourhood community areas are
inspired by the 70’s lifestyle, where music and dance were celebrated directly in the streets.
These streets used to be extensions of people’s homes and living rooms - an opening of the
inside towards the outside. These urban entities acted as eventful spaces, forums for the local
arts, meeting points and playgrounds. The reinterpretation of this principle is presented on a
human scale as paths and in-between zones connected with the community environment in
the form of basketball fields, study rooms or places for the performing arts. These elements
magnify the potential of unifying workers and inhabitants of the Hunts Point community within
South Bronx lifestyle. They define views and privacy thresholds and generate a truly animated
atmosphere.
Program repartition is based on promoting art-related and culinary activities taking place on
site. Given the importance of the Spofford Avenue as a principal transit connection between
the industrial and residential districts, the buildings (called The Food Strip) that face it are
designed to mainly showcase food production – the product growth, preparation, and catering
as well as the market itself. Ironically, the existing residential district lacks of convenience
stores whilst being surrounded by large food-related industries. Therefore, staging the food
production cycle is definitely pertinent within the context.
ID : 24384-1391184732734
The ground floor is occupied with communal and public spaces, providing privacy progression
towards the residential apartments on higher floors. The strips forming the new intervention
site derive from our interpretation of the typology of streets and alleys. Strips split into distinct
zones – built and green spaces. This aspect guides our conceptual approach by extruding the
ground into built frames. Our proposal design is not only a result of solar and thermal
analysis, but evolves with our desires to create a stimulating environment. The mass’
arrangement is intended to provide and promote social interaction amongst people.
Process and methodology
During the process, we focused on three (3) major focal points of analysis. The first strategy
we wanted to develop was providing optimal daylight access within the different spaces and
residential zones throughout the whole year. Due to the large scale of the building, this was
really challenging. As soon as we began to design, we teamed up with engineering experts
and students (mechanical, structural and acoustic) in order to improve and further guide the
design. In parallel, we developed a variety of physical and virtual models in order to compare
and discuss analysis results. We used Autodesk Revit, Vasari and Ecotect Analysis on one
side, light meter and artificial sky on the other. We really want to develop analogue and digital
ways of thinking to be able to fairly criticize our own results. At first, we only performed mass
analysis and tried many configurations – c-shape, square courtyard, strips, and more. We
compared them with each other in order to determine the optimal solution. Not only did we
want to select the building with the best performance but also the one that we thought could
offer most to its potential occupants. We wanted to create a unique design with both
sustainable and architectural qualities. We found out that bar typology is the most efficient
and stimulating strategy.
The second factor was to include sustainable aspects within our design in order to reach
carbon neutrality and net zero energy proposals. Sun, Wind & Light: Architectural Design
Strategies (DeKay & Brown), Autodesk Green Studio Building and resources provided by
2030 Palette were very useful within this process. We developed more detailed and bigger
scale models in order to obtain more accurate results. With these results, we applied new
layers of sustainable strategy (ex. grand-coupled heat exchanger) and observed how the
energy was really spent. We then kept adding filters until we achieved our goal. The final
proposal is a mixture of various time-tested strategies such as solar heat gain, heat
recuperation or cross ventilation.
The last factor to consider is the human scale. This variable is unpredictable and cannot be
calculated through software analysis. The real buildings uses will be optimized with the
occupant’s decision to take part in the urban life. Even if we created the perfect building
(though there is no such thing), only time could tell how it will succeed or fail. We’ve been on
site in order to truly immerse ourselves in the neighbourhood life. We wanted to feel the
inconvenience of truck traffic on Tiffany Avenue, to admire the Monastery, to explore and to
take part of the community (even for a brief moment). In that case, our proposal also includes
personal in situ perceptions.
Green Giant
ID : 24384-1391184732734
Final results and feedback
Before the very first sketch, we predicted than a carbon-neutral concept would be possible
and could be achieved through our process. Architecture 2030’s objectives were guidelines
toward this sustainable goal. Each building’s performance analysis guides us to constantly
improve your design, to work every detail in order to progress and develop sustainable
strategies within our proposal. Our first Autodesk Vasari analysis displays that we reached the
60% mark set by today’s energy targets (see graph above). At that point we knew that with
each next step our design was on a good trail to greatly reduce its CO2 and energy
consumption. The second graph displays the design’s evolution through each step and
strategy, evolving towards a better future as well as the ultimate goal: carbon neutrality. We
even got to accomplish a bigger achievement – designing self-regeneration.
Ultimately, we found that there was a major flaw in Autodesk Vasari. It work perfectly fine with
masses and simple forms but when introduced with more detailed models, this tool proved to
be really limiting within its analyses. It doesn’t really include the effect of passive factors when
proceeding to comparing different concepts or strategies. As mentioned before, we can’t and
shouldn’t only base our conception on the software’s results and statistics – it’s more about
interpreting and comparing the data with many additional factors.
Green Giant