Monday, January 30, 2012
Asking the right questions?
How do you come up with an innovative solution?
To help highlight some of the questions we are asking ourselves, the diagram below shows some of the process we are journeying through to reach a viable, creative and technically excellent solution.
One example that I really like is Tony Fadell's Nest - The Learning Thermostat. Here is an example of beautiful design combined with a highly efficient and useful tool that will lower energy bills and help cut carbon usage. I love how he hopes it will become a talking point when guests come into a home, and seeks to radically change people's perceptions of both what's possible, and what being energy wise and efficient is. Check out more at the site below:
To help highlight some of the questions we are asking ourselves, the diagram below shows some of the process we are journeying through to reach a viable, creative and technically excellent solution.
One example that I really like is Tony Fadell's Nest - The Learning Thermostat. Here is an example of beautiful design combined with a highly efficient and useful tool that will lower energy bills and help cut carbon usage. I love how he hopes it will become a talking point when guests come into a home, and seeks to radically change people's perceptions of both what's possible, and what being energy wise and efficient is. Check out more at the site below:
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Jumper idea....
Summary
The idea is to encourage people to adapt their inside clothing to match the outside climate. This means wearing less clothes in the summer and more clothes in the winter, thus placing less load on the heating and cooling systems, resulting in decreased energy use and carbon emissions.
Initially, I feel that we should look at applying this to homeowners, because if we try to apply it to an office it would mean that all workers in an office would have to coordinate in order to wear similar clothing every day. If anybody is feeling particularly adventurous it may be possible to come up with a way of going about this. Aiming at homeowners means we only have to look at the heating system, as the vast majority of homes in the UK don't have any form of cooling.
Therefore, the idea is to give out second hand jumpers (in some way- covered shortly) for people to wear around the house so that they can turn the thermostat down a few degrees.
I believe this idea gives us a great basis to cary out some fairly in-depth engineering calculations that will set us apart as engineers at a festival of architecture.
Building services design
It may be a good idea to give a brief background of design in building services engineering. Design in the UK is usually based on guidance given in the CIBSE Guides (Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers).
The first thing to do in any design is to find out what conditions need to be maintained in order to keep the occupants comfortable. Comfort encompasses many different factors, but for the purposes of this summary it can be said that a certain temperature range needs to be maintained. This varies with the type of building (dwelling, office, airport etc.) and also the season (winter or summer). The temperature range to be maintained depends on what the occupants are doing, defined by the Met, and what they are wearing, defined by the Clo. I believe that the comfort temperature in a dwelling in the winter is something like 22-24C, with fairly light clothing and doing little activity.
In the heating season (late autumn to early spring, usually about 30 weeks) the required temperature may be decreased by increasing the Met level or by increasing the Clo level. Realistically it would not be possible to increase the Met level, although I do remember something a few years back when all the workers in an office had their computers in front of a treadmill, which was a way of tackling obesity. But that was in America. Moving on....so the best way to decrease the temperature requirement is to encourage people to wear more clothes, which is where the idea of giving jumpers out comes in.
The calculation
There would be a number of ways to carry out the calculation. The following paragraphs detail how you would do this by following CIBSE guidance, however it must be remembered that, as a design guide, CIBSE is inherently conservative. Alternative methods may give results of larger carbon savings, but we could look into that.
The idea is to encourage people to adapt their inside clothing to match the outside climate. This means wearing less clothes in the summer and more clothes in the winter, thus placing less load on the heating and cooling systems, resulting in decreased energy use and carbon emissions.
Initially, I feel that we should look at applying this to homeowners, because if we try to apply it to an office it would mean that all workers in an office would have to coordinate in order to wear similar clothing every day. If anybody is feeling particularly adventurous it may be possible to come up with a way of going about this. Aiming at homeowners means we only have to look at the heating system, as the vast majority of homes in the UK don't have any form of cooling.
Therefore, the idea is to give out second hand jumpers (in some way- covered shortly) for people to wear around the house so that they can turn the thermostat down a few degrees.
I believe this idea gives us a great basis to cary out some fairly in-depth engineering calculations that will set us apart as engineers at a festival of architecture.
Building services design
It may be a good idea to give a brief background of design in building services engineering. Design in the UK is usually based on guidance given in the CIBSE Guides (Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers).
The first thing to do in any design is to find out what conditions need to be maintained in order to keep the occupants comfortable. Comfort encompasses many different factors, but for the purposes of this summary it can be said that a certain temperature range needs to be maintained. This varies with the type of building (dwelling, office, airport etc.) and also the season (winter or summer). The temperature range to be maintained depends on what the occupants are doing, defined by the Met, and what they are wearing, defined by the Clo. I believe that the comfort temperature in a dwelling in the winter is something like 22-24C, with fairly light clothing and doing little activity.
In the heating season (late autumn to early spring, usually about 30 weeks) the required temperature may be decreased by increasing the Met level or by increasing the Clo level. Realistically it would not be possible to increase the Met level, although I do remember something a few years back when all the workers in an office had their computers in front of a treadmill, which was a way of tackling obesity. But that was in America. Moving on....so the best way to decrease the temperature requirement is to encourage people to wear more clothes, which is where the idea of giving jumpers out comes in.
The calculation
There would be a number of ways to carry out the calculation. The following paragraphs detail how you would do this by following CIBSE guidance, however it must be remembered that, as a design guide, CIBSE is inherently conservative. Alternative methods may give results of larger carbon savings, but we could look into that.
- Determine the amount, in degrees C, that the building temperature can be decreased by (whilst keeping the occupants comfortable) by wearing a jumper. CIBSE Guide A has the following:
- Thin jumper: -0.7C
- Medium jumper: -1.4C
- Thick jumper: -2.1C
- Next, the amount of energy used by the heating system for each scenario (no jumper, thin jumper, medium jumper, thick jumper) can be calculated by doing a Degree Days calculation, which gives the average output of the boiler in kW over the heating season.
- The amount of energy saved for each type of jumper is calculated by subtracting the energy use from the energy use from wearing no jumper (if that makes sense! This is simple, just hard to explain in words!)
- The energy saving can then be converted to a carbon saving by multiplying by the Energy-CO2 conversion factor. For natural gas, which most boilers are, the conversion factor is 0.055 kgCO2/kWh.
Delivery
A few ideas of how this can be delivered in practicality........
- A drive for jumper donations from Ramboll employees. There are 10,000 of us!
- Partnership with local trade (don't forget, sustainability does not stop at materials and energy- it includes trade, business, happiness, health, friendship, love.......). Would work well in a cool place of London with boutiques and second hand shops.
- Display jumpers on 3 racks- S, M and L. However, these are not based on the actual size, but the thickness of the jumper. That is, S for a thin jumper with small carbon savings, M for a medium thickness jumper and L for a thick jumper with the largest carbon savings.
- A large jumper to display the amount of carbon that can be saved. Can be made from recycled material, and have some sort of practical use. Bear in mind that this thing would be pretty big- apparently the average carbon footprint for a person in the UK is 10 tonnes. Density of CO2 is about 1.9kg/m3, so 10 tonnes CO2 is equivalent to ~5,500m3. That is accounting for EVERYTHING, so would be smaller if you only account for CO2 emissions arising from activities in the house. It might be possible to source a fashion company who have some end-of-the-line jumpers they are looking to get rid of and use these to build the structure.
- We don't actually HAVE to give out jumpers, just put across the idea of wearing extra clothes indoors.
- Hopefully more to follow.....
Friday, January 27, 2012
Some Ideas so far
A Junkyard Oasis Themed Installation.
We could create a small public park out on the street using recycled materials. Furniture could be made from crushed cans like those seen here (although probably in less complex forms). The area could be greened using plants in a variety of recycled containers, chipped mugs and glasses, plant pots constructed from tin cans as above, or from papier-mache(making use of used paper from the office). The aim would be to create an organic and tranquil area which encourages people to think about recycling more creatively, and expresses the benefits of recycling for the environment. By creating an area where people can stop, chill out and interact with the exhibition it sort of links in with the theme of "The Playful City" as well as the Ramboll theme of "Reuse/Recycle".
Textiles Awareness Event.
Textiles waste is apparently the fastest growing waste stream in the United Kingdom, leaving us with 2 million tonnes of C02 each year and generating 3.1 million tonnes of c02. I thought encouraging greater recycling of clothes and textiles might be a nice little niche that's slightly different than most of the recycling stuff you hear about.
We could do some kind of event to highlight this encouraging people to be less wasteful with their textiles. One idea I had regarding this was that 3.1 million tonnes of carbon is equivalent to 25.3 cubic metres of C02 per person each year. We could have 25 balloons with 1 cubic metre capacity tethered around the event and release them into the sky at the end of the event. It might be a good way for people to visualise the amount of carbon they release into the atmosphere in this way.
Thermostat Awareness
Apparently turning your thermostat down by 1 degree saves 230 kg of carbon each year which is about 117 cubic metres. If we did something similar to the balloon idea above this could link in well with Noels idea about using second hand clothing to reduce heating demand.
Useful leaflets.
It'd be good to produce some leaflets which people won't just throw away. I thought it might be possible to get a supply of oyster card holders printed with a message on the back, something along the lines of: "Each year 11 million tonnes of paper are used in the UK, and 5 million tonnes end up as landfill. That's why we're giving you this instead of a leaflet, for more information on how you can reduce your waste visit www...... Be kind to the planet, Ramboll" Might be a good way to get people to think a little bit, and its got some novelty value.
We could create a small public park out on the street using recycled materials. Furniture could be made from crushed cans like those seen here (although probably in less complex forms). The area could be greened using plants in a variety of recycled containers, chipped mugs and glasses, plant pots constructed from tin cans as above, or from papier-mache(making use of used paper from the office). The aim would be to create an organic and tranquil area which encourages people to think about recycling more creatively, and expresses the benefits of recycling for the environment. By creating an area where people can stop, chill out and interact with the exhibition it sort of links in with the theme of "The Playful City" as well as the Ramboll theme of "Reuse/Recycle".
Textiles Awareness Event.
Textiles waste is apparently the fastest growing waste stream in the United Kingdom, leaving us with 2 million tonnes of C02 each year and generating 3.1 million tonnes of c02. I thought encouraging greater recycling of clothes and textiles might be a nice little niche that's slightly different than most of the recycling stuff you hear about.
We could do some kind of event to highlight this encouraging people to be less wasteful with their textiles. One idea I had regarding this was that 3.1 million tonnes of carbon is equivalent to 25.3 cubic metres of C02 per person each year. We could have 25 balloons with 1 cubic metre capacity tethered around the event and release them into the sky at the end of the event. It might be a good way for people to visualise the amount of carbon they release into the atmosphere in this way.
Thermostat Awareness
Apparently turning your thermostat down by 1 degree saves 230 kg of carbon each year which is about 117 cubic metres. If we did something similar to the balloon idea above this could link in well with Noels idea about using second hand clothing to reduce heating demand.
Useful leaflets.
It'd be good to produce some leaflets which people won't just throw away. I thought it might be possible to get a supply of oyster card holders printed with a message on the back, something along the lines of: "Each year 11 million tonnes of paper are used in the UK, and 5 million tonnes end up as landfill. That's why we're giving you this instead of a leaflet, for more information on how you can reduce your waste visit www...... Be kind to the planet, Ramboll" Might be a good way to get people to think a little bit, and its got some novelty value.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Ramboll & The LFA
I thought it might be useful to put up some links to Ramboll's involvement in the LFA in previous years.
In 2008 Ramboll ran a Greening Bays design competition on Store Street where 14 parking bays were transformed for a day into 'sustainable urban interventions'. The entrants were extremely diverse, a gallery of some of them can be seen here, its well worth a look.
In 2008 Ramboll ran a Greening Bays design competition on Store Street where 14 parking bays were transformed for a day into 'sustainable urban interventions'. The entrants were extremely diverse, a gallery of some of them can be seen here, its well worth a look.
2010 saw a number of Ramboll projects entered, the most striking of which was The Carbon Cube, a giant timber cube which represented the volume of timber needed to offset the average UK citizens carbon footprint. More information about the carbon cube and how it encouraged people to think about their own carbon footprint and steps they could take to reduce it is available here. Ramboll was also involved in exhibitions with Edward Cullinan Architects as part of the Making Places exhibition, and with a number of nearby design companies as part of the Fitzrovia Trail.
Its quite striking that both of these exhibitions have utilised peoples attitudes to public spaces to get their message across, something I'm trying to be aware of when coming up with ideas for our entry.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Who are we?
This
Blog is written by Michael, Andy, Cillian and Noel, four graduate
engineers working for Ramboll UK. The aim of this blog is to document
the development of our proposal for an event to hold at the London
Festival of Architecture fulfilling the brief “Reuse&
Recycle”.
The 2012
London Festival of Architecture takes place from the 23rd
of June to the 8th of July with the theme
of “The Playful City”. The festival comprises many events
including exhibitions, lectures, walks, talks, bike rides,
installations, temporary structures and tours of historic buildings.
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