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 IPD: Downtown Sailing Advanced Studio Course

Who says engineers and architects don’t get along? In a class that I am assistant teaching this Spring semester, along with Andreas Savvides AIA, AICP of Boston Architectural College and Alan Quinn of Sasaki Associates, Inc., Masters and Bachelors of Architecture students have been teamed with Worchester Polytechnic Institute cost estimating students to evolve their creative designs into affordable, energy efficient structures. Through a grant from the American Institute of Architects, Len Charney, Head of the BAC Practice Department, was able to secure laptops that could be used by each individual student throughout the semester. Each laptop is loaded with the latest Autodesk Revit software, and of course, IES Virtual Environment and the IES Revit Plug-in.

The basis of the class is to take a project from a previous semester, a boathouse, and readapt it for the new site at Four Point Channel in downtown Boston. The site is minutes from the Boston IES office, and is actually on a plot of manmade land. As many may not know, Boston grew for years, expanding into the surrounding bodies of water through a gravel infill project. (For more information of this: http://www.iboston.org/rg/backbayImap_1890.htm ) By pulling out fill (dirt, gravel, etc) from the hills in Boston, and eventually from the surrounding areas, Boston increased its footprint exponentially. This new site is going to require student to rework their previous boathouse project in major ways. Some of the key differences at the new site include the height from the retention wall to the water (the previous site had a gradual slope down to the water) to the manmade context (the other site was vegetated) to the difference in look and size of the surrounding buildings. The result will be a completely different looking boathouse as students adapt it to the new site and urban context.

This class will depend on using BIM (Building Information Modelling) from the early design stages. Alan Quinn has taught the students how to use Revit Architecture 2009, and students, guided by me (Michelle Farrell of IES Boston), will be constantly run their models through IES as they change or adapt them to the new site conditions. Each design move will have impacts on the heating and cooling loads, total energy usage, and daylighting inside of the space. Student will be required to keep track of the effects of these changes, and then modify their final models to improve energy performance.
Please stay tuned for more updates from this class, including images from the student’s final projects in May!

Here are some images from the site visit:

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Tags:Architects, Boston Architectural College, Engineers, Environment

As an employee of IES who is looking at sustainability from the architecture and design point of view, I know how important it is to think of the energy consumption of a building before you finalize, or even start, a design. Thinking ahead to a green mechanical system is not something engineers are solely responsible for, nor is it something that can be achieved by adding a single solar panel. Green design is a holistic approach, viewing all aspects of the building as potential problems or solutions that could reduce the energy loads on the building. As a student as well as an employee, I am putting these ideas to use for a competition that my college will be involved in.

The 2009 Solar Decathlon takes place in Washington DC as a bi-annual event, hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy. Twenty schools have been chosen to participate in this event. As a Masters of Architecture student of the Boston Architectural College, I am deeply involved with the project. Our architecture and interior design focused college partnered with engineering and policy students of Tufts University and entered the competition that will take place October 9-18, 2009. IES software is an invaluable tool for us to use throughout the design process.

IESVE has provided both time and resources for the Boston Architectural College/Tuft’s Team to analyze/gain real-time feedback on the design, and offers the team an advanced tool to tune their design to a point where it is ready to compete, and hopefully win this competition. This experience is teaching architects to work closely with the engineers throughout the design process by showing how important this is, instilling skills for the future. The team also has to work together to construct the design on the National Mall in Washington DC.

Please look for us in the future on our team website: http://www.teambostond.com/index.shtml
Keep up with the entire USDE 2009 Solar Decathlon at: http://www.solardecathlon.org

Hope to see you in 2009,

Michelle

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Tags:Boston Architectural College, Green Design, IES VE