Renewable Energy: The Latest Architecture and News

Solar technology has enormous potential, but it has been underutilized. To get an idea of just how underutilized it is, consider that every 24 hours the amount of sunlight that hits the Earth could provide energy for the entire planet for 24 years. Of course, it is necessary to collect it properly, through photovoltaic systems. With the climate crisis increasingly present in our daily lives, causing growing concerns about obtaining energy from renewable sources and reducing carbon emissions, using the sun's possibilities to generate clean energy seems to be a path of no return. But there are still some difficulties that reduce its use, such as obtaining economical solar products, aesthetics, availability of these products, regulations, and even installation issues.

Building-integrated photovoltaics, or BIPVs, offer the design and construction industry solutions to typical challenges that hinder adoption of solar energy. Below, we list the main challenges of incorporating solar energy into projects and how they can be overcome.

A new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that global warming of 1.5°C (2.7 °F) is essentially inevitable in coming decades. The question now is whether the world can prevent further, more destructive warming of 2°C (3.6°F), or, even worse, 3°C (5.4°F), which is what current policies put us on a trajectory to experience. Our economies can only put another 420 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere if we want a good chance of keeping a temperature increase to 1.5°C instead of 2°C. At our current pace, the world’s carbon budget will be used up before 2030. We need to phase out fossil-fuel use, build thousands of new clean power plants -- and swiftly move to power our homes, offices, schools, and transportation systems with clean energy.

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Anyone who lives in a big city may have dreamed of moving elsewhere and living isolated, in a house among the trees or on a deserted beach. During the pandemic and the endless months of quarantine, many more may have had this same idea. As romantic and seductive as this may seem, however, living deep in nature comes with some important practical challenges. Rarely would anyone give up the little comforts they are used to, like turning on a faucet or charging their cell phone. If the location is, in fact, remote, it may not have electricity, drinking water, gas, sewage, or solid waste collection. But there remain several possibilities for a life with comfort and without neighbors. What are the main solutions to enable this and how can an architectural project provide an off-the-grid life?

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In today's climate, energy and how we use it is a primary concern in the design of built spaces. Buildings currently contribute nearly 40% to global carbon emissions and with a projected growth of 230 billion square meters in construction before the end of 2060, the focus on construction decarbonization efforts should be paramount.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

The news about real action on climate change tends to track toward the gloomy. It is easy to despair, given the severity of the problem and the time left to properly address it. But there is progress being made in the built environment—just not nearly fast enough to offset emissions elsewhere. In recent years the sector has added billions of square feet of new buildings, but seen energy consumption for the entire sector actually decline. A good chunk of the credit for that accomplishment can go to architect Edward Mazria and his dogged advocacy organization, Architecture2030. Mazria and his team, along with collaborators all over the world, keep doing the unglamorous work of revising building codes, working with mayors, governors, elected officials in Washington (and officials in China), forging new alliances, all while deftly working around the climate obstructionists currently occupying the White House. Recently I talked to Mazria, who spoke from his home in New Mexico, about his take on where we stand. Some of the news, alas, is pretty good.

Once restricted to space stations and satellites, photovoltaics are now gaining popularity and becoming an increasingly viable option. Every day, the sun releases an enormous amount of energy, far more than the entire population consumes. Being that the sun is a sustainable, renewable, and inexhaustible source for generating electricity, not using it seems almost counter-intuitive, especially considering the social and environmental impacts of other forms of energy generation. But the technology to create electricity from the sun is by no means simple and still has some limitations, the most significant being price. The following article attempts to explain some basic concepts about this process, and to highlight important considerations for designing a solar energy system. 

Superspace has designed a system of energy-harvesting balloons for Abu Dhabi. The project, titled “solarCLOUD” formed part of the LandArt generator competition and is intended as the city portal of Masdar City. The system consists of a group of solar balloons woven with solar fabric, creating a shaded park during the day while tracking and harvesting solar energy. At night, the system settles down to become a kinetic light art show.

Rwanda’s largest publicly funded project, Bugesera International Airport is on track to be the first certified green building in the region. A few pieces of this net zero emission complex include: a 30,000 square metre passenger terminal, 22 check-in counters, ten gates, and six passenger boarding bridges. Funded by Public Private Partnership, the project is cost estimated at $414 million USD. The international hub was only one of several initiatives discussed by the Africa Green Growth Forum (AGGF) in Kigali at the end of last year.

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The LAGI 2019 competition offers designers and creatives the opportunity to re-imagine energy infrastructure and demonstrate the beauty of a 100% renewable world.

Seattle-based Olson Kundig has released details of their second-place winner from the 2018 Land Art Generator competition, set in Melbourne, Australia. The “Night & Day” scheme combines solar energy with a hydro battery, generating enough power for 200 Australian homes, 24 hours per day.

The St Kilda-situated infrastructure proposal doubles as an artwork and pedestrian bridge, with a flagship 5,400-square-meter solar sail suspended above the St Kilda Triangle in Port Phillip city. After sunset, further electricity is generated through two turbines capturing the kinetic movement of water released through them.

In the quest for carbon neutrality, the City of Helsinki in Finland announced its action plans to minimize greenhouse gas emissions substantially by 2035. The city’s fully owned energy company, Helen Ltd, a producer of district heating, power, and district cooling, aims to augment this policy by converting its largely coal and natural gas energy production processes to climate-neutral energy production, thereby eliminating carbon dioxide emissions fully by 2050.

The island nation of Taiwan is a country that boasts both a high population density and a wide range of ecosystems. However, a large issue that the country is currently facing involves the energy production and consumption, and the negative impact it has on the environment. With the largest power plant slated to be shut down by 2023, a team from Taiwan has devised an architectural proposal for how to construct a plant that both generates enough electricity to serve the metropolitan area and reduce its negative impact on the air quality and surrounding wetlands.

In an effort to spark public discussion and new ideas on how sustainable design can manifest as decent, affordable housing, Yale University has collaborated with UN Environment and UN-Habitat to unveil a “tiny house” fully powered by renewable energy. At 22-square-meters, the eco-house is designed to “test the potential for minimizing the use of natural resources such as water.”

The prototype was unveiled during the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, constructed from locally-sourced, bio-based renewable materials. While the first prototype is designed for the climate and context of New York, future iterations can be adapted for site-specific conditions around the globe. Design and fabrication of the module was carried out by Gray Organschi Architecture, working in direct partnership with the Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture.

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