Design for Climate Change

Yestermorrow Design-Build School

Ben Falk, Buzz Ferver

CONTENTS :

1. Schedule
2. Summary

I. Design challenges

II. Design response

1. Principles and Strategies

III. Design Assignment

1. Resources

A. SCHEDULE

Day 1

9-12:00

• Introductions
• Overview and outline of course
• Student expectations communicated at this point will help customize the course, so come prepared with your specific questions and interests.
• Overview lecture and discussion: Design for Climate Change
• Review of book and any handouts
• White board session to ID climate design challenges categorically by scale
• Graphing categorically by scale: Historic, Present, Future
• Design assignment issued and discussed

12:00-12:45 Lunch

12:45-5:45 Design responses illustrated at various scales (white board)

Field trip to the Whole Systems Design Site and Buzz Ferver’s.

Optional dinner together in Montpelier or the Mad River Valley

Day 2

9-12 Field trip to Teal Farm

12:00-12:45 Lunch

12:45-Eve Graphing of design responses/ Studio time

Design assignment

Day 3

8:30 – 12:00 Design assignment time

12:00 - 12:45 Lunch

12:45 - 4:00 Design Assignment presentation and wrap up

B. SUMMARY

Comprehensive responses to climate change require the development of resilient biological and built systems (human habitats) that are adaptive in the face of shifting of climatic influences. This workshop highlights strategies for creating integrated building and landscape systems that can function in an age of climate extremes; longer droughts, hotter summers, colder winters, higher winds, increased pests, heavier precipitation events, and other patterns that have always tested humanity’s ability to thrive in a place. Developing climate-responsive human habitats starts with addressing three primary aspects of site settlement.

• Site and microclimate design FOUNDATION
• Biological systems design SUPPORT STRUCTURE A
• Built systems design SUPPORT STRUCTURE B

Working Definitions

Climate : Weather patterns over time: general pattern of temperature, moisture, sunshine and wind in a specific area.

Microclimate : A discrete area within a larger area of differing climate. Microclimates usually occur close to the surface of a material, commonly earth, a building façade or vegetation. They occur in a nested manner at all scales and over various periods of time.

Climate Change ( as opposed to global warming): More rapid changes in global and local climates entailing increased severity of weather patterns, not simply a general warming.

C. PRINCIPLES & STRATEGIES

• Siting and Microclimate Design

Selection of the site and the design of its climate form the basis of the site’s habitability.

Site Selection – Step 1

Some landscape features cannot be changed at all or only to a small extent. These usually include: relative location to surrounding landscape (elevation, distance from water bodies and mountains, etc.), aspect, slope, general hydrology, bedrock exposure, etc. Only at the site selection stage can these primary features be considered and selected for and against. Site selection is the first and most influential decision to be made in developing your human habitat.

PRINCIPLES:

Select a site to harness optimal:

• Regional influences (wind, temperature, moisture)
• Large lake/river valley buffering
• Mountain wind funneling, katabatic/anabatic winds
• Mountain rain shadow or upslope effect
• Solar-aspects
• All day sun and shade choices: Multiple aspects with a generally south-facing exposure is ideal
• Slope(s)
• Air movement and all season energy capture and distribution: varied slopes are optimal
• Elevational relationships
• Above valley frost bottom, below cold slopes
• Hydrology
• Stable water supply and varied water tables: some clay content is optimal, below large slopes/aquifers is optimal
• Existing windbreaks and exposure
• The basis of wind buffering: berms/mounds/vegetation

Site Design – Step 2

Once a site has been chosen a handful of strategies, planned for and implemented carefully, can optimize the existing climate characteristics of the site to more fully meet the needs of the site’s inhabitants.

PRINCIPLES:

• Capture and store solar energy utilizing:

Angled surfaces (vs. horizontal planes)

Bowls/arcs = sun traps

High mass: stone and water are primary materials

Biological storage,-Vegetation, fruits, nuts etc.

• Minimize radiative losses – cover
• Buffer winds
• High absorption (low albedo)
• Color
• Texture
• Timing

Examples of intentional microclimates in “nature”

Termite mounds

Beehives

Burrows

Animal nests

Plant leaves, animal and plant growth forms

Microclimate creating landscape features

Hills – fields – trees/forests – cliffs – boulders – gullies – ridges – depressions – ridges – slopes – streams/drainages - groundwater – ponds – lakes – roads – buildings – lawns – roofs – courtyards - stonewalls

• Biological Systems Design

The resiliency and health of a site is largely determined by the level of diversity of the site’s biological elements and by the number ways in which these elements are connected.

Strategy : Diversity + coordination = resiliency

PRINCIPLES:

Diversity

Complexity

Connectivity

DIVERSITY

• Genetics
• Function
• Food values
• Medicinal values
• Ecosystem values
• Soil
• Wildlife
• Nectary/pollination
• Flowering, fruiting and harvest time
• Hardiness
• soil type
• moisture levels: drought/inundation
• cold/heat
• pest
• wind
• snow
• Growth rate and form
• Lifespan and replacement

CONNECTIVITY/COORDINATION

• Guilds/Mutualism
• fertility
• pests
• resource partitioning
• sun
• soil horizon
• harvest timing

RESILIENCY/ADAPTABILITY

• Capacity and rate to which a system can increase in order, complexity, productivity and diversity.
• A system’s negentropic ability.

• Built Systems Design (structural, heating/cooling, electric)

PRINCIPLES:

Simplicity

Passivity

Durability

Fix-ability/maintainability

Legibility/Accessibility

Efficiency

Connectivity

Biomemetic and Biological Design

D. DESIGN ASSIGNMENT

In 3 groups you will develop a conceptual master plan for the Mad River Valley that outlines development needs for the following resource systems.

RESOURCE SYSTEM :

• Land systems: Food and Fuel
• Technical systems: Buildings, Infrastructure, Electricity and Materials
• Organizational systems: Education, Training, Government, Community

Each group will identify climate-adaptable, more durable and highly-functioning systems in each of these resource streams. You will then detail the principles and criteria of these systems and site them in the Mad River Valley according to their optimal locations for integration with other systems. Please note how each of these systems will interact with other types of systems and similar/different systems at other scales.

Each resource system and its principles should be applied according to scale.

SCALE :

• Home and neighborhood
• Town and community
• Valley wide
• Regional/Continental

Your work should take the following forms:

• Maps, plans, diagrams, schematics, drawings
• Bulleted lists/outlines
• Textual summaries
• Photos

Your work should answer the following questions in addition to others:

CONTEXT/EXISTING CONDITIONS

• What are the predominant structures/systems being used?
• What aspects of this/these systems are vulnerable to climate change in particular and how so?
• What’s failing about these systems so far?
• Why are these systems problematic and what is it about the new systems that is needed/what new systems are needed?

FUTURE/DESIGN/SOLUTIONS

• How will the new systems be adaptive to a changing climate?
• What tools are needed to be developed or used in the development of the new/future systems?
• What materials will be used?
• What organizational mechanisms are needed to employ the solutions?
• How will the designs/future/solution be financed? What are existing funding opportunities?
• Who will be most engaged in developing the design? Key players?
• What training and education opportunities are needed?

E. RESOURCES

Passive Survivability; Environmental Building News

Data from Lester Brown

Atlas of Climate Change