Posts Tagged ‘building’

‘Energy Tower’ Combines the Old with the New

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

When innovative buildings pop up in the news, no one is ever surprised to hear that the next architectural wonder will be built in the UAE. Dubai, Bahrain, and Abu Dhabi all seem to be competing in the green building department.

The eventual goal is for buildings to generate much of their own energy. Burj-al-Taqa (translated to mean energy tower), which will hopefully break ground in Dubai soon, follows this principle and will supposedly be completely self-sufficient.

Plans for its creation began in 2007 when the German architect Eckhard Gerber, dreamt up the design. Virtual images of the building popped up in hundreds of articles and we all wondered if this candle-shaped building would revolutionize the green building industry.
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The proposed Burj-al-Taqa zero-energy skyscraper.

A couple of interesting differences between this burj and all the rest, is its cyclindrical shape and the building materials used-both meant to help dissipate the heat. The tubular design is meant to minimize the surface area exposed to the sun while the special vacuum glazing used on the glass covering the entire structure will also help keep the heat out. This type of glass was only recently made available.

Burj-al-Taqa’s architects are also learning from history: Ancient Arabian houses used energy efficient technologies at a time when there were no other alternatives. (It is ironic how many buildings are reverting back to older technologies these days.) These old homes used a natural air conditioning system that sucked cold air into the living space via lateral vents which in turn forced the hot air out into the 120 degree summer heat.

The Spiegel describes how Burj al-Taqa hopes to use a similar process with their in-depth article: “The negative pressure created by winds breaking along the tower will suck the spent air from the rooms out of the building via air slits in the façade. The plan is for fresh air to be pumped into the interior of the building by means of a duct system at the same time.”

It doesn’t stop there. Seawater running through the cellar and under each floor will cool the air, while a large wind turbine on the roof of the 322 meter building will help generate enough electricity to power the skyscraper. Massive photovoltaic facilities will help charge the rest of the power grid.

After construction, burj-al-Taqa will be the 22nd tallest building in the world, but if all goes well, it will tower above the rest when it comes to energy efficiency.

Editor’s Note: For more on buildings like the burj-al-Taqa, a very interesting website we have uncovered is the skyscraper category of “Jetson Green,” dedicated reporting on innovative green building design.

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Posted in Buildings | 3 Comments »

Dynamic Tower-Room with a Rotating View

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

An apartment with a view is coveted property. After a hard day at work, sitting down in front of a panoramic window while sipping a glass of wine is a wonderful way to unwind.

A decent view is hard to come by. Not only that, but when actually given options, it may be hard to decide between the ocean view, city view, west side, or east side facing apartments. The answer: Individual rotating floors. Just make a choice and viola! The apartment slowly turns to face whatever you are in the mood to see that day.

Dubai, home to 1/3 of the world’s cranes, is constantly expanding. High rise buildings, hotels and skyscrapers are popping up like daisies. The latest technology and newest ideas are often used in the building process here, so it is no wonder that the revolutionary, rotating Dynamic Tower, designed by architect Dr. David Fisher, will break ground in Dubai.

The 420 meter (1,380) high tower will be constructed of 80 individual floors, which are divided into luxury apartments, small villas, offices and a hotel. Each section will rotate at various speeds, depending on the owners specifications. This amazing building will take on a life of its own as the individual sections slowly turn next to one another, constantly revolving and never looking exactly the same.

The Rotating Dynamic Tower
(Image: Rotating Tower
Technology International Ltd.)

This skyscraper isn’t just going to look pretty, either: It is meant to generate electricity thanks to the wind turbines that will spin between each floor.

The construction technique is yet another feat in itself, making the complicated design amazingly quick to build. Fisher explains that the Dynamic Tower will be “the first skyscraper to be built entirely from prefabricated parts that are custom made in a workshop, resulting in fast construction and substantial cost savings. This approach, known as the Fisher Method, also requires far less workers on the construction site. [To put things into perspective, 2000 workers are typically needed on sites as big as this, but only 80 technicians are required for the tower].” In the end, it only takes 7 days to complete each floor!

Dynamic Tower should be opening its doors as soon as 2010.

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Posted in Buildings, Energy | 1 Comment »

Beans As Building Blocks

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Few plants show up on the table in as many forms as the soybean. This hairy legume has been an important component of various foods and drugs in asia for over 5,000 years. In that time, it has been squeezed, pressed, boiled and engineered into soymilk, tofu, edamame, sprouts, flour, or vegetarian cheeses. Soybean oils are also found in soaps, cosmetics, plastics, clothes and biodiesel. Soy is everywhere and now we can literally surround ourselves with the stuff by using it as foam insulation in our homes.

Insulation is appealing to homeowners because it reduces energy costs: A properly insulated home will stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter since the flow of heat is restricted. This cuts down immensely on heating and cooling costs. Not only that, but thicker, insulated walls absorb sound, so neighbors yelling at the traffic passing by won’t wake you up at night.

Most traditional insulation materials are non-biodegradable polystyrene and polyurethane blends, which require petroleum for production. A soy based foam, on the other hand, is just as easily sprayed throughout the home and besides having the highest percentage of renewable resource ingredients, it is also biodegradable.

Ohio based Emega technologies proudly states that “EMEGA Soy-based Spray Foam Insulation is manufactured from renewable American grown soy beans. Among its best features is that it expands to 100 times its volume to completely fill every space and void creating a barrier and thermal seal. The EMEGA thermal seal keeps your heating and cooling costs low. The barrier keeps pollutants out of your home and greatly reduces noise pollution. As an inert substance EMEGA Soy-Based Spray Foam Insulation retains its structural integrity for the life of your home. It is not effected by moisture, mold, insects or rodents.”

Bio Based Insulation is another company specializing in Soy based insulation. Their success is obvious, with an article about the company finding its way into magazines on a regular basis since 2003. They developed the first water-blown, closed-cell spray foam, which eliminates the need for spraying agents than contain harmful chemicals. Once sprayed, the foam does not shrink or settle and is comparable to, if not better than, other insulation products.

An average home requires about 2 acres of soybeans for full coverage. The foam lasts practically forever, and with a 30-50% reduction in energy usage per home because of added insulation, these beans are definitely being put to good use.

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Posted in Buildings, CleanTech, Energy | 1 Comment »

The Living Tower

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Getting fruits and vegetables onto the kitchen table is a stressful affair. Farmers constantly deal with pests, weather changes, pesticides, droughts, increased costs of running equipment and crop diseases. For example, the moth, Helicoverpa armigera, causes crop damage in excess of 5 billion dollars worldwide per year, while the 2008 floods in the U.S Midwest have already soaked through thousands of acres of farmland.

Losing a crop is extremely frustrating; especially to farmers who excitedly bought land and then purchased the popular $110,000 180-PTO horsepower diesel tractor to maintain the now demolished harvest. Architects and agriculturalists believe that many of these issues can be solved with indoor agriculture. Not only that, but by incorporating farming into high rise buildings protected from outside variables, the volume of produce harvested increases dramatically. In fact, one indoor acre may yield up to 6 times as much of a crop as a traditional outdoor farm.

The Living Tower, a theoretical 30 floor high rise farming community designed by Paris based SOA architects, would house;
130 apartments on the first 15 floors, 9000 square meters of office space on the remaining 15 floors, a 7000 square meter shopping center, a library and even a nursery in addition to the gardens distributed throughout the building. Link to the Press Release for more information.

Living Tower architects have focused on specific crop productions and believe the following estimates will represent respective crop yields:

63000 kg of tomatoes per year
37 333 feet of salads per year
9 324 kg of strawberries per year

The building design keeps efficiency and alternative power in mind as well: two large windmills rotating on the roof will generate 200-600 KWH of electricity per annum and will assist in pumping recovered rainwater throughout the complex. Photovoltaic panels will cover the outer walls while inside the tower, ventilation shafts draw in underground air keeping temperatures comfortable throughout the year.

VerticalFarm.com, a website devoted to vertical farming (VF) architecture, provides a list of benefits associated with the technology:

• No weather-related crop failures due to droughts, floods, pests
• All VF food is grown organically: no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers
• VF virtually eliminates agricultural runoff by recycling black water
• VF returns farmland to nature, restoring ecosystem functions and services
• VF greatly reduces the incidence of many infectious diseases that are acquired at the agricultural interface
• VF converts black and gray water into potable water by collecting the water of Evapo-transpiration
• VF adds energy back to the grid via methane generation from composting non-edible parts of plants and animals
• VF dramatically reduces fossil fuel use (no tractors, plows, shipping.)
• VF converts abandoned urban properties into food production centers
• VF creates sustainable environments for urban centers
• VF creates new employment opportunities
• VF may prove to be useful for integrating into refugee camps
• VF offers the promise of measurable economic improvement for tropical and subtropical
• VF could reduce the incidence of armed conflict over natural resources, such as water and land for agriculture

There are few things more satisfying than picking a ripened tomato from your own tree and enjoying the fruit knowing that you don’t have to worry about pesticides, importing problems or other issues involved with the agriculture business. With vertical farming on the rise, it won’t be unheard of to enjoy homegrown strawberries while snow piles up on the busy city streets below.

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Posted in Buildings, Water | 1 Comment »

Hycrete-Cementing Building Technology

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

When it comes to improvements, it is good to start with the basics. The fundamental part of any city, road, or building is concrete. By reducing the amount of energy needed to build, and by simplifying the components of the concrete, CO2 emissions are reduced while the whole building process is made more efficient.

Voted a GoingGreen winner and covered in numerous publications ranging from Time Magazine to Gizmag, Hycrete is a company at the forefront of cement technology. Hycrete has been manufacturing products in New Jersey for 40 years, and had already made a significant impact to the building industry by bringing a class of rust inhibitors to the market in the 1950s. Its more recent claim to fame-waterproof cement technology-was developed in the mid 90s when Michael S. Rhodes, one of Hycrete’s key inventors, developed the unique moisture and corrosion blocker.

Rhodes’ accomplishments are impressive: He has worked with NASA to develop solid rocket fuels and improve the heat shield of the Apollo series.  The inventors’ interests are varied, however, and don’t stop there: Rhodes was also involved in creating products for the military, such as protective foams for submarines. At Hycrete, it was time to develop a product to shield one of the most used building materials on earth-Cement-from the elements.

The main problems associated with cement are corrosion and cracking. Hycrete describes the issue in their data sheet: “Conventional concrete absorbs water and dissolved salts through a network of capillaries and cracks. [This water weakens the cement and may cause rusting to any steel piping or internal structures. Also, water runoff is often an issue] Hycrete Elite’s hydrophobic properties shut down the capillary wicking action that carries salts to the reinforcement layer and transforms concrete into a waterproof construction material. Unlike external membranes or coatings, Hycrete Elite provides real time protection as it is mixed into concrete to provide integral waterproofing and corrosion resistance.”  Being waterproof, cement mixed with hycrete elite is perfect for rooftop gardens, parking lots, erosion control etc.

Waterproofing cement the ‘old-fashioned’ way is a major environmental issue: A popular approach is to line the entire structure with a waterproof membrane. The problem with this membrane is that it is typically composed of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which are non recyclable, so when this cement needs replacing it is simply tossed into a landfill. Almost half of the building materials sitting in landfills are made up of this kind of cement. 

The soap like properties of hycrete, on the other hand, follow the ‘cradle to cradle’  philosophy and break down when returned to the soil. By being mixed into the cement rather than sprayed on top of it (though this is an option with other hycrete waterproofing products), the cement is recyclable and can be reused.  It would be nice not to have to worry about leaky roofs while watering your fruit garden on top of a high rise complex.

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