architecture

World’s Largest Solar Powered Foot Bridge

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Check out this groovy solar-powered foot bridge:

solar bridge

Read about it at Energy Matters or see more pictures at Ecofiend.

One of the other unique features of the bridge is how it is lit and powered. The bridge employs a sophisticated LED lighting scheme that can be programmed to produce an array of different lighting effects, which will become a feature of Brisbane’s annual Riverfire celebrations.

75 per cent of the power required to run the LED lighting in the fully lit mode is generated by solar energy, but in most lighting configurations, 100 per cent of the power will be provided by solar with any surplus electricity returned to the main grid. The 84 solar panels used on the bridge will have an average daily output of 100kWh and an average yearly output of 38MWh

Public Works Minister Robert Schwarten said the bridge’s grid connect solar power system will see savings of around 37.8 tonnes of carbon emissions each year.

Sears Tower to Undergo $350 Million Green Retrofit

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

You may already now that Sears Tower is getting a huge energy retrofit costing $350 million because it’s got a lot of media attention. Still, it’s really good to see old office towers see the benefit of spending a lot of money on increasing efficiency of their buildings.

Operators of the nearly 36-year-old, 110-story building say they have cut annual electricity consumption by 34 percent since 1989 and that increased energy efficiency has reduced annual CO2 emissions by 51 pounds since 1984.
Proposed renewables at Sears Tower.
Their five-year renovation plan is expected to bring base building electricity consumption down by 80 percent. The reduction is estimated to be equivalent to 68 million kilowatt hours or 150,000 barrels of oil a year. The retrofit project is also expected to slash annual water consumption by 24 million gallons. And the work is expected to create 3,600 jobs.

The improvements, detailed on the Sears Tower website, are to involve replacing and glazing the 16,000 single-pane windows; and upgrading boilers, elevators, escalators, lighting restroom fixtures and water management systems.
Sears Tower and hotel.
Wind turbines, solar panels to heat water for the building and green roofs are to be installed on various terraces and tiered roofs of the complex.

Green Roofs Changing Architecture

- Adam Clare

Over at Treehugger they have a good slideshow about the state of green roofs in architecture.

Sometimes they developed naturally and organically, like this rooftop garden in lower Manhattan that like Topsy, just grew. And grew, and eventually evolved from a New York roof garden into what they now call a Green Roof.
Green roof new york

The Self-Sufficient City

- Adam Clare

Looking to save the world? Then enter the international competition to design the self-sufficient city. One of the goals is to spur some online discussion, so what do you think the city of the future will look like? And will you enter the contest?

The competition jury, which is composed of architects, directors of some of the world’s foremost architecture schools, and mayors of cities such as Barcelona, is looking for outstanding proposals for any city in the world, at any scale, and within any timescale. Competition entries should be submitted via the Internet (www.advancedarchitecturecontest.org) on Connected metropolises, Eco neighborhoods, Self-sufficient buildings, Intelligent homes or any other proposal for a short-, medium or long-term project to create habitats that respond to the social, cultural, environmental and economic conditions that may obtain in the 21st century. The proposal should include whatever texts, drawings and other images may be needed to make it fully understandable.
The competition prizes will consist of three scholarships for the IaaC Masters in Advanced Architecture for academic year 2010-11, cash prizes, and the latest generation of large-format HP printers. The selected projects will go on show in a major exhibition, due to open in Barcelona in May 2010, which will then travel to key cities around the world. The best projects will also be featured in a book to be published by Actar. The project is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Housing, the Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona City Council, and the publishing house Actar.

Top sustainable construction projects honored

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

The Holcim Foundation has released the winners of the most sustainable buildings in North America. The CBC is reporting that Canada has won three awards.

The winners of the second North American Holcim Awards competition for Sustainable Construction projects were announced at a ceremony in Montreal. Total prize money of USD 270,000 was presented to nine projects from Canada and the United States that showcase the latest approaches to address critical topics including housing affordability, employment, renewable energy, and water efficiency.

The competition is run in parallel in five regions of the world by the Swiss-based Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. Almost 5000 projects from 90 countries entered the competition which aims to promote sustainable responses from the building and construction industry to technological, environmental, socioeconomic and cultural issues.

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