Solar-go-round!
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
SmartSurfaces Final 203
After the review of our first iteration, my conclusions are as follows.
1. rethink our goal and direction. Solar water heating and community interaction are both good idea, but it might not produce desired result if we just forced them to be merged together
2. scale down the project. Maybe I misunderstood that Gina wanted big stuff, but in terms of our budget, time and ability, even a door/window size is good enough. Think of the scale of the projects in previous year.
3. rethinking of the projects/ideas from the first four weeks, dont start over with something brand new again
4. make prototypes and test them ASPS. I totally agree with this according to my installation experience, it always takes forever to go through the iteration and finally get work.
2. scale down the project. Maybe I misunderstood that Gina wanted big stuff, but in terms of our budget, time and ability, even a door/window size is good enough. Think of the scale of the projects in previous year.
3. rethinking of the projects/ideas from the first four weeks, dont start over with something brand new again
4. make prototypes and test them ASPS. I totally agree with this according to my installation experience, it always takes forever to go through the iteration and finally get work.
Also I am thinking of Garret’s idea about pumping the water. If we scale it down to a proper size installation without hurting the building, it might work. And I kinda want to continue the idea about human as energy source and pushing the community interaction into a productive and active way. Since all the other groups are dealing with solar energy, I guess and passive human interaction. It is good to have human trigger the sensor and then LED light or so, but it is better to have human provide the energy for those effect at the same time. And then we could also introduce some data collection system.
Monday, October 24, 2011
SmartSurfaces shadow analysis
I used sketchup to analyze the shadow on the courtyard and help to optimize the location of our merry-go-round.
Here is the shadow study about Dec 23, the day receiving least solar energy.
Here is the shadow study about Jun 23, the day receiving most solar energy.
Obviously the further the merry-go-round is away from the house, the less shadow it would receive. It will be more energy efficiency. But the heat it lost through conduction from the panel to the tank will be increase at the same time. So we need more quantitative study about this tradeoff.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
SmartSurfaces final 201
Our group is focusing on solar water heating, but also knowing that Gina really wants to improve community interaction. So we try to combine these two key points.
I am thinking of making some interactive fountain which can be used as landscape water supply and also played by people. Here is the inspiration. http://wowblogazine.blog.com/2011/06/08/peugeot-creates-worlds-first-interactive-and-ecological-fountain/
I am thinking of making some interactive fountain which can be used as landscape water supply and also played by people. Here is the inspiration. http://wowblogazine.blog.com/2011/06/08/peugeot-creates-worlds-first-interactive-and-ecological-fountain/
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Ideal House midreivew
We just had the midreview for our ideal house project. And I like the comment by those critics. The conclusion is as follows:
1. I need to build a big model to show the interior space. Since my project is more about the view from inside to outside. But due to the spatial complexity, it is very hard to understand by merely drawings. I need to move inside the space, or show more inside shots to the critics. My project is more about inside than outside.
2. I need to rethink and reorganize my story. Basically I have two different stories, one is the ambition to improve the family intimacy while the other is framing different good views by private space (bedrooms) for the communal space. But these two stories are not weaved together very well, or even, I am not sure whether they can. Craig likes the first story while Anca likes the second. But maybe Anca is right, that architects can not do too much about ideal family and the visual connection between the communal space and private space would only increase the the undesired suspicion and the thread toward personal privacy.
3. Rethink and redefine the poche. It seems that I considered poche as the panacea and threw any dirty laundry , such as circulation, mechanical and other unsolved space, into it. It is not right.
4.The slope of the house, 15deg seems to be too unpractical.
1. I need to build a big model to show the interior space. Since my project is more about the view from inside to outside. But due to the spatial complexity, it is very hard to understand by merely drawings. I need to move inside the space, or show more inside shots to the critics. My project is more about inside than outside.
2. I need to rethink and reorganize my story. Basically I have two different stories, one is the ambition to improve the family intimacy while the other is framing different good views by private space (bedrooms) for the communal space. But these two stories are not weaved together very well, or even, I am not sure whether they can. Craig likes the first story while Anca likes the second. But maybe Anca is right, that architects can not do too much about ideal family and the visual connection between the communal space and private space would only increase the the undesired suspicion and the thread toward personal privacy.
3. Rethink and redefine the poche. It seems that I considered poche as the panacea and threw any dirty laundry , such as circulation, mechanical and other unsolved space, into it. It is not right.
4.The slope of the house, 15deg seems to be too unpractical.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
IdealHouse 601 Tidal House
I continued with the communal/private space idea and extended its application from cube to other shapes, like triangle cylinder and sphere.
And I also was thinking of the correlation between Tue. smartsurfaces and Fri. ideal house. It is always hard to have a movable house since it costs a lot, but if we could use natural energy/force directly to maintain the motion of the house, that might be a good solution. So I came up the idea about tidal house, i.e. part of the house could be lifted by the tide and would change to the different water level daily. Then the internal spatial relation between the movable part and the unmovable part is also different. And I set the communal space i.e. living room and dinner room, as the movable part, while the private space i.e. bedroom and study as well as the poche space, as the unmovable part. So it means that on the ebb tide, you could see you kid's shoes from the living room, while on the high tide, you could see his/her face.
I made a DP model. The room with purple floor is the communal space and those with yellow floor are the private space inserted.
And I also was thinking of the correlation between Tue. smartsurfaces and Fri. ideal house. It is always hard to have a movable house since it costs a lot, but if we could use natural energy/force directly to maintain the motion of the house, that might be a good solution. So I came up the idea about tidal house, i.e. part of the house could be lifted by the tide and would change to the different water level daily. Then the internal spatial relation between the movable part and the unmovable part is also different. And I set the communal space i.e. living room and dinner room, as the movable part, while the private space i.e. bedroom and study as well as the poche space, as the unmovable part. So it means that on the ebb tide, you could see you kid's shoes from the living room, while on the high tide, you could see his/her face.
I made a DP model. The room with purple floor is the communal space and those with yellow floor are the private space inserted.
 |
| high tide |
 |
| start ebbing |
 |
| keep ebbing |
 |
| ebb tide |
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
SmartSurfaces 501 final project pre_thinking
Still want to continue with project 1_glowing landscape
SmartSurfaces 402 light rotate seasonally
- sun tracker and solar panel to charge the batteries and power the whole system
- sensors, there are many options for us, but up till now, we would like to start from the most basic one- PIR
- outdoor LED landscape and indoor display
- signal processor, indoor ardurino/PC, connecting all the above components
 |
| Logic diagram (revised) |
The project will be installed on the yard, and the first phase will be along the east edge, but it could be expanded in the future phase.
 |
| Plan view |
We also designed the structure of one module. Placing the LEDs inside the concrete box/slab will protect them from theft.
 |
| detail of one module |
 |
| sidewalk section (PIR sensors) |
 |
| sidewalk section (LEDs) |
The indoor display will be the aggregation analysis of the data received by the outdoor sensors. But we need to define the pedestrian behavior before.
 |
| Indoor display - your Marauder's map? |
The cost estimation for the 1st phase is as follows.
SmartSurfaces 401 light rotate seasonally
We really like this project improved by the last group, so we determined to refine the design instead of re-designing something new, keeping the security and interactive feature. But there are three different directions, so we need to pick up one of them and go deeper for it. After team discussion about the advantage and disadvantage of them, and realizing there is a corner yard in front of the longest facade, we finally picked up the last option. Since the corner yard is the private property belonging to the power house, which the owner might not want strangers to get close to. Thus the yard serves as the fence zone between the power house and the sidewalk. In option 1 or 2, most of the installation happens on the house facade, there is less opportunity for community interaction.
 |
| Option_1 LED band around the power house |
 |
| Option_2 LED facade |
 |
| Option_3 LED landscape |
But in option 3, if we really put the LED lights on the top of the landscape, there will be security problem - people might steal the LED lights. So we tried to embed the LED into the ground. We found a reference project "white noise white light" online, by Howeler + Yoon Architecture.
We think it is a good idea to blend artificial installation and natural landscape. Another good reason is no one wants to get into long grass, so long grass could serve as a good fence between private properties and public area, a buffer zone.
 |
| Logic diagram |
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
SmartSurfaces302 hourly water fold
Reference
- Hydroponic solar garden by Amy Youngs and his collaborators
- good idea about how to deal with water supply and drainage
- inspiration about the helix form, to optimize the utilization of space (for tropical plants, many of them need at least 3 ft vertical space for growing
- hanging garden by Sao Paulo
- economical and recycled materials like coke bottles
- simple hanging and connection system
- flexible system easily to adapt to different sizes of plants
Project position: between the kitchen and living room, under the skylight
Sun tracker to sun REFLECTOR:
- attach a mirror on the sun tracker
- sun tracker would trace the location of the sun
- mirror would reflect the sunlight onto the plants
 |
| calculation of the mirror angel (16.4 deg) |
Side view of the project, and people can pick up the vegetable when cooking.
But at the same time, this installation can also be a home decor and provide better view and green space to people.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)