P+ Studio

The Wujin Green Building Industry Cluster Demonstration Area is the first of its kind and is promoted and sanctioned by the Chinese Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, aimed at promoting green buildings and green building technologies. All new buildings are planned to incorporate sustainable strategies, 20%-30% residential buildings are planned to achieve three-star Chinese standard of green building, and existing buildings will undergo an 80% energy-saving renovation in the next few years. There are currently eight projects on site, including the P+ Demonstration building, which has been awarded two stars as part of China’s Three Star Green Building Design Label.

Our P+Demonstration building is a place for interdisciplinary workshops and teaching, and a gallery for members and partners, including Healthway, one of the leading US companies producing domestic and commercial air purification technologies. The design of the building aims to take advantage of the adjacent water microclimate and green space for natural ventilation and interior comfort and is itself an open ended system, capable of being upgrades as new technologies arise. The building itself has two distinct faces, the South, with its overhangs and smart louver systems designed to maintain stable internal temperatures and prevent overheating, and the North, which acts as an environmental buffer zone and creates a unique viewing platform from which to experience the rest of the park. The structure of the South façade also has capability of being upgraded and changed according to client needs and technologies. Current components include Trina Solar’s photovoltaic glass, as well as  solar panels.

The most prominent feature of the building is the solar chimney, the first of its kind in the Jiangsu Province. Designed by P+ Studio in conjunction with Dr. Jensen Zhang of Syracuse University and Dr. Menghao Qin of Nanjing University, the solar chimney aims to reduce energy loads by facilitating natural ventilation during the warmer months, and passive heating during the cooler parts of the year. It is currently undergoing testing and analysis as part of a collaborative study between Nanjing University and Tsinghua University.

Lead Design: Vasilena Vassilev, Michael Pelken, Minqu Deng
Beijing Office Principles, China: Minqu Deng, Qi Bin
Design Team: Liu Chao, Li Zhuxing, Alun Singleton, Li Di
Climate Engineers (UTRC): Yi Jiang, Chang Xiaomin, Song Fangting

The Guangxi Fangchenggang City Peach Blossom Bay Development is a 400,000 m2 Mixed Use Urban Development proposal in Southern China, with a concentration in sustainable community planning and architectural design. Our project was the second-place winning entry, as part of a Developer-commissioned International Invited Competition. As a working model, the Guangxi Fangchenggang City Peach Blossom Bay Development Competition seeks to address the above mentioned issues through an integrated collaborative working model between architects, planners and environmental engineers.

The methodology of the design team was primarily focused on mirroring natural systems in the planning and design stages of the architecture. As part of the design process, the project team developed a strategy for the introduction of a system of permaculture. In the core of the project, the team designed a continuous landscape and overall site strategy to allow for a rebirth of the natural ecology (previously desecrated by monocultural shrimp farming) and build an increasingly self-sufficient ecosystem. Using simulation technology, the engineering team modeled aspects of the ecosystem and analyzed its behavior with a focus on several design aspects like water management, biodiversity and life cycle assessment.

The project design methodology began with an environmental assessment of the site that is situated near the coastline, including a survey of regional solar and local prevailing wind patterns, existing ground conditions, biodiversity of the existing natural mangrove vegetation and infrastructural connections.

In order to meet established performance criteria, both architects and engineers focused on the utilization of enhanced natural ventilation through optimized building orientation and massing. Site density and plan configurations had to allow for an 80% efficiency for the use of natural daylight. Using CFD modeling and a detailed climate analysis, an optimized form for the planning of the site was reached, fulfilling architectural design and environmental performance criteria.

A wide range of urban, architectural and performance based design aspects are to be considered for large scale new urban developments. The design project exemplifies interdisciplinary working modes for the negotiation and optimization of site conditions, programmatic and infrastructural zoning, pedestrian and motorized traffic distribution and landscaping strategies. The master plan provides a base for the further development of all aspects of the building design including the use passive and hybrid building technologies, façade and external envelope components and productive landscapes.

The roots of our scheme are ingrained in the natural history of the site and the interconnected nature of the mangrove. The architecture formation and building systems was inspired by the majestic beauty of natural Karst Topography.

The crystallized form of the buildings allows for interesting geometries while the orientation allows for optimization of sunlight throughout the day, in the summer and winter months.

Just as Karst topography is a natural extension of the landscape, the architecture emerges from the site by integrating its ground level podium into the towers. Through the careful analysis of these already functioning natural phenomena, we were able to extract fundamental inspirations for our designs. These principles guided us to develop our concept for a new inspired living typology.

99K House Competition, AIA Houston, in collaboration with Markus Hermann and  Minqu Michael Deng.

Inspired by the legacy of Houston’s space industry, "Just Landed’ is a sustainable and environmentally optimized housing prototype. Its efficient and pre-fabricated constituents are quickly assembled on-site with minimum labor and equipment. Its materials, spatial configuration and passive environmental technologies optimize the house to make it an environmentally friendly and comfortable place to live."The lightweight structure employs the modular build-up of nine repeating units, allowing for a clean exterior facade and a flexibly configurative interior space plan. The structure is lifted off the ground to protect from flooding, for overall safety, and to create a self-shaded exterior living space.

The development of a low-cost sustainable housing prototype has been developed with two main objectives: ‘less to build’ and ‘less to run’. The modular, prefabricated system is intended to be primarily made of recycled industrial components, thus curbing carbon emissions by reducing the amount of embodied energy and extending the material life-cycle. Passive building technologies and geometry optimization of structural components respond to the local climate, making the structure highly energy efficient.

The house is a design addresses the need to conscientiously and aesthetically address the impending environmental and economic factors of the present without compromising the needs of the future.

Landesgartenschau Competition, Hemer, Germany. Proposal for a multi-purpose event hall is the result of a non-public design competition for the annual Landscaping Expo. Completed in collaboration with Markus Hermann.

The building is intended to house major events for the landscaping exhibition, providing strong programmatic and spatial links between the interior and exterior spaces. Multiple spatial configurations are possible in order to allow for a wide range of activities. The building provides the flexibility to be used as a multi purpose sports facility after the exhibition.

The multi-purpose event hall can be programmed in various ways throughout the event seasons. The cantilevered roof connects to the landscaping of the sloped site, and provides protected exterior terraced seating for the outdoor theatre. It further facilitiates natural daylighting and integrates solar thermal heat exchangers and PV installations. The proposal received an acquisition award.

The proposal for the Asian Games headquarters in Guangzhou is the result of an invited competition, in collaboration with Markus Hermann and Urbanergy. 

The Center facilitates the administration areas the Asian Games 2010 Committee. The building provides flexible program areas for open plan offices, educational facilities, exhibition and convention spaces. After the games the building is to be converted into training and sports facilities and an exhibition hall. The sustainable development is designed to achieve 30% energy savings compared to conventional construction of a similar scope. (160.000 sqft development, construction cost 12 million USD).

The building is designed with the goal to achieve the greatest efficiency possible and using environmentally friendly technologies and materials As a key feature of the design arium spaces have been introduced to the building. These spaces interconnect the different building levels and connect the deep floor plates to the exterior environment. The external envelope responds to different climate conditions throughout the year. It consists of several simple but efficient layers that work together as a ‘smart skin’.

AIR CONTROL: Controlled Airflow with flow resistance devices (FRD)

Design Research Agenda: Vertical Axis Wind Turbines integrated in High-Rise Structures The project is funded by the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems (Syracuse CoE).

Syracuse CoE is an industry-university collaborative enterprise that supports research and development projects through grants it receives from New York and U.S. agencies. This project was conducted with $100,000 grant from Syracuse CoE as a component of one of its programs that are funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The project involves resources of Syracuse CoE, including faculty, students, and staff from Syracuse University. Syracuse CoE involves more than 200 firms and institutions, which collaborate to create innovations that improve health, productivity, security, and sustainability in built and urban environments.

The Air Control project explores opportunities for a controlled air flow around and across tall buildings via enhanced natural ventilation through the use of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines. The position of these flow resistance devices can be changed in response to changing wind conditions.

Wind conditions, while heavily dependent on regional climate characteristics and the geographic location, are typically hard to predict. Changing prevailing wind directions of varying intensity expose a building to a range of environmental conditions throughout the yearly seasonal cycle, and even throughout a single day.

The building’s orientation and massing determines how the air will flow around the object. The volume will therefore inevitably produce resistance and manipulate the otherwise unhindered air flow pattern. As a result, positive and negative pressure on the building exterior can occur in different ways at different times.

Wind loads are a major area of consideration in the design, construction and operation of high-rise structures. Varying pressure and velocity profiles impact structural requirements for a proposed massing, the plan layout of the building and its core, the façade design and the implementation of hybrid HVAC strategies.

The Botanical Air Cleaning Wall System was developed together with Professor Jensen Zhang, Professor and Director of the Building Energy & Environmental Systems Laboratory (BEESL), Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Syracuse University. The current prototype was constructed and designed through a collaborative workshop with Syracuse Architecture and Engineering students.

As part of the development of the ACT Air Cleaning Technologies prototype designed by the BEESL Lab at Syracuse University http://beesl.syr.edu/act.htm, the wall system is based on the Wolverton* filtration technology, a NASA based spinoff technology, which presents a unique opportunity for developing and commercializing such an integrated air cleaning device. The device uses a plant root bed of activated carbon, porous shale pebbles, microbes and a wet scrubber to remove VOC’s and radon from the air in tightly sealed buildings.

The modular wall assembly is comprised of a panelized hydroponic planter system, proposed as part of a typical insulated residential or commercial wall buildup. The current prototype filters air through the plant root bed through an air duct system which brings the refreshed air indoors.

Wolverton,B. C. Can plants improve air quality in the office environment? In: Proceedings of the 14th Annual International Facility Management Conference and Exposition, Denver, CO, Oct. 10-13, 1993, pp. 279-288.

The Flux Tower project investigates design opportunities for the integration of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines into high-rise structures for clean and renewable onsite energy generation. The design is based on the patented efficiency principle that was developed for the Self-Sustaining Street Lighting project.

In order to apply the developed geometry optimization logic to this building type and allow for a cross flow through the building center, the required core arrangement had to be decentralized. The funnelling effect is produced by the actual building massing and the sloped façade surfaces that direct the wind towards the created central void.

Three triangulated and aerodynamically shaped vertical core components further redirect the air flow to the center of the building, where the turbines are located. Thus a three dimensional funnel is created that enhances pressure and velocity of a given wind condition. The circular plan arrangement allows a response to changing wind exposure in three main directions.

The modular configuration breaks the building down into separate, individual building zones. One turbine is hereby dedicated to one high rise module each. Thus, the balance between the expected consumption and the required energy generation can be explored as an isolated problem. This relationship can now be systematically adjusted according to the impending program, as well as regional site and climate conditions.

The award winning design for the first American off-shore wind farm is based on an existing proposal that is supposed to deliver clean and renewable energy to the community around Cape Cod. The competition design proposal strengthens the relationship between the individual, the urban community and the industry. The project was completed in collaboration with Markus Hermann and won first place in the Boston Society of Architects Sponsored Windscape Competition in Boston, MA.

Concept: E_50 Energy Island is intended to provide 75% of clean and renewable energy for the communities around Cape Cod. On a larger scale, the wind power plant raises various socio-political and legal issues on a regional and national scale.  The design represents all US states in a programmatically flexible and modular wind park. The light weight structure provides ‘pavilions sections’ for each state for information about sustainability issues and is therefore triggering a larger social impact on a national scale.

Methodology: In amending some of the key parameters for the original wind farm proposal, the design reduces the total proposed wind turbines to only 50, minimizing its visual impact. Funding originally meant for the construction of the 130 turbine farm is then allocated towards upgrading community appliances and educating the public about conservation measures and the reduction of energy consumption.

Design: The design of the wind farm allows for the construction of a wind park, where visitors can learn about renewable energy resources and new technological green initiatives. The public platforms therefore becomes an integral part of the farm’s design, allowing for the creation of a park identity. Each wind turbine represents an individual state along the circular arrangement of the platform, framing the farm in the larger context of the US.

The light suspended structure supporting the park is taking advantage of the necessary massive and elaborate structure that is being provided by the individual masts of each wind turbine. Thus no major additional structure for the park is needed.

Structurally the chosen light weight system only works if all 50 elements representing the 50 states work together as a ‘closed system’. If one element fails the entire system will collapse. Conceptually this means that the states are strictly united and have to agree to be a part of the spirit carrying and supporting the overall idealism with a shared agenda.

The “Virtual Design Studio (VDS)” is a software platform currently under development in support of an integrated, coordinated and optimized design process of buildings and their energy and environmental systems. It is a US funded Advanced Energy-Efficient Building Technology Project, Category ‘Analysis, Design, and Technical Tools’ funded through the DOE American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, in response to ARRA DE-FOA0000115, awarded July 2010. The VDS project scope encompasses the development of an Integrated Computer Simulation Environment for the integrated Performance-Based Design of Very-Low Energy and High IEQ Buildings.

VDS is intended to assist collaborating architects, engineers and project management team members throughout from the early phases to the detailed building design development. The platform helps to facilitate the workflow and the processing of information in combination with appropriate, task based simulation tools targeted at performance optimization and coordinated systems implementation. It has been developed in collaboration with Dr. Jensen Zhang of Syracuse University, Lixing Gu from the Florida Solar Energy Center and Hugh Henderson, from the CDH Energy Corporation in New York. The project has involved PhD and master level students from both the engineering and architecture faculty at Syracuse University.  The project has also formed the conceptual frame work for the interdisciplinary course work “Virtual Design Studio for Sustainable Building Systems Design” offered at Nanjing University in China.

The objectives of this project are to: 1) Develop a method for integrating conceptual to detailed design processes, with which designers can quantitatively evaluate the predicted performance of various design options, iterate and optimize the design; 2) Develop an integrated simulation environment for energy efficiency and IEQ analysis, which enables the simulations of energy, environmental and combined heat, air, moisture and pollutant transport for whole buildings (CHAMPS-Multizone); 3) Develop and implement Energy Plus (E+) and a method for interaction/coupling with CHAMPS-Multizone; and 4) Develop a user friendly environment/platform that also integrate well with existing Building Information Models (BIM) and allows for the detailed investigation of systematic performance interdependencies.

We are currently working with colleagues at the University of Cambridge on exploring the potential of using aerospace value assessment methodologies for designs in the built environment. The purpose of the research is to demonstrate how aerospace and architectural design techniques can be merged into a novel, advanced, fully integrated and coordinated design approach that will benefit the construction industry of the future.

The objective to combine VDS with VA methodologies stems from the need to add critical evaluations to the design process from an engineering perspective—particularly in the area of efficiency, productivity, manufacturability, and whole life cycle analysis for projects focused on the integration of complex systems and manufacturing principles. This concept is aligned with major industry initiatives that are intended to mitigate acknowledged productivity gaps in the construction industry.

Competition entry designed collaboratively with Clare Olsen. Project was one of four awarded as Runner up.

Drawing inspiration from textile crafts of quilting and embroidery, TEXtile is a playful, modular assemblage utilizing two materials and two structural systems.  Anchored to a compression ring and stacked from the bottom up, the “tile” assembly gains greater rigidity through a modular “x”-form that gradates in thickness across the mesh.  The tiles and brace pattern, both CNC milled from aluminum sheet material, create a visual airiness that has the lightness of fabric, but stability and sturdiness of a "brick-like" stack.  Similar to quilt making, the tiles may be assembled and connected as needed by multiple crafters and then “stitched” together on site.

The project was exhibited at the University of Houston.

Team:

Clare Olsen and Vasilena Vassilev with the Digital Fabrication Alliance and associated students

Materials:

aluminum, colored felt, bolts

The Station 20 Design is a new urban hub and metro station in Sofia, Bulgaria, in an up-and coming area close to urban fringe Soviet-era residences.

The design creates a new hub that prioritizes public transportation over individual car traffic and responds to relevant pedestrian access points, while improving the quality of the district with a dynamic recreational urban park environment. This urban gesture would further provide an interactive, node with  attractive open spaces for  multi-generational activities and a continuous recreational and cultural landscape with a great variety of programming, planting and green spaces.

The design achieves this through a planned 5% drop of the existing major road situated directly above the station, thereby privileging the pedestrian throughway on the ground level. This allows for the penetration of daylight deep within the underground subway levels, while  separating cars and people to achieve a more efficient and safe traffic flow. The underground apertures allow for unique views to the exterior, visually connecting to the sky and the surrounding park landscaping.

The plan introduces an architectural language and structure that is influenced by idea of flow and connectivity through a free spanning concrete waffle slab roof structure. The design incorporates low energy LED lighting, PA speakers, acoustic lining, sprinklers, smoke detectors and other required technical installations via a suspended ceiling. It also allows for the installation of back lit vitrines, art work and multi-media screens for the display of news and city events, mixed media or advertisement in wall recesses; the entrance hall can function as an exhibition space or gallery with a temporary program and offer variety to frequent commuters.

Bathing Beauties Competition Finalist Entry for the design of a contemporary Beach Hut. Completed in collaboration with Markus Hermann.

This design answers the question: How much architecture does it take to chill out at the beach?

The light weight and simple beach hut, designed for the Lincholnshire coastal community in the UK, is ‘taking it easy’ and will provide a permanent enclosure for the most essential beach equipment only. A ‘backpack’ made of rigid fabric is attached to the platform for the storage of all goods. The tent like enclosure is stabilized by metal rods that keep the fabric in shape and that withstand wind and rain.

The project has circumnavigated the globe in various international exhibitions.

SNOGLO was designed for the Warming Huts Competition in collaboration with Clare Olsen. The shelter combines digital fabrication techniques with traditional igloo construction to provide a warm, playful shelter for Forks Rivertrail ice skaters. Using egg crate construction to create a monocoque structure, snow is packed into the negative spaces of the frame to generate a cozy, cave-like shell.

Benches provide resting and conversation areas sheltered from the wind. Airplane grade acrylic colorizes the light through the window boxes, illuminating the interior space with a warm hue. At night, embedded solar-powered LEDs will create a glittery effect across the surface of the shell.