by: admin
Event: Buildings=Energy Exhibition and Opening
Location: Center for Architecture, 10.01.11
Speakers: Margaret O’Donoghue Castillo, AIA, LEED AP — 2011 AIANY Chapter President; Cynthia Kracauer, AIA, LEED AP — AIANY Managing Director; Michael Strauss — President, Center for Architecture Foundation
Organizers: AIANY in collaboration with the Center for Architecture Foundation
Sponsors: Underwriters: ARUP; Con Edison; Perkins+Will; Lead Sponsors: Buro Happold; STUDIOS Architecture; 3M Window Films; Energy Products Distribution; APG Design Studio; Sponsors: FLIR; MechoShade Systems, Inc.; Robert Silman Associates; Trespa; Supporters: Acheson Doyle Partners Architects, PC; DeLaCour Family Foundation; Ibex Construction; KPF; Syska Hennessy Group, Inc.; Friends: 1100:Architect; Bleecker Area Merchants & Residents Association (BAMRA); Brenda Levin; Capsys Corp.; Community Environmental Center, Inc.; Helpern Architects; Hugo S. Subotovsky AIA Architects, LLC; Levien & Company; New York Building Congress; Inc.; Oppenheimer Brady Vogelstein; P.W. Grosser Consulting, Inc.; Swanke Hayden Connell Architects; Viridian Energy & Environmental, LLC
Courtesy of the Center for Architecture
The Center for Architecture’s fall exhibition, “Buildings = Energy,” explores how critical choices made by architects can bring about positive changes in cities’ energy use, more specifically NYC. It echoes the “Design for a Change” platform of 2011 AIANY President Margaret O’Donoghue Castillo, AIA, LEED AP. Castillo, who recently returned from attending the UIA’s 24th World Congress of Architecture in Tokyo, an event that brought to light the post-earthquake challenges facing the country, believes that “this exhibition couldn’t be more timely. Architects should be involved in the political aspects of energy use.”
The exhibition is comprised of informational boards illustrated with project examples, including models and mock-ups of sustainable building strategies. It examines energy use through a variety of lenses, including programming, passive vs. active systems, site and material choices, and concepts such as embodied energy and Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCA). The exhibition also offers examples of how to extend the lives of buildings through renovations, retrofits, reconstruction, and deconstruction projects.
On the mezzanine, viewers learn the basics behind concepts such as peak load, heat flows, and R-value. They also get a glimpse of energy-saving gadgets like the Kill-a-Watt, a meter that assesses appliance efficiency, and the Power Cost Monitor and wattson01, which are systems that display real-time energy use for an entire building. The exhibition also highlights various municipal- and community-based efforts that aim to reduce energy use, such as PlaNYC 2030, Urban Green Council, CCNY’s Solar Decathlon entry Solar Roof Pod, Pratt Center for Community Development, and Solar One by the NYC Department of Education.
Although many of the concepts presented will be familiar to Chapter members, the format is easily digestible and should prove engaging and educational for just the curious visitor. It is on view through 01.12.12.
Murrye Bernard, LEED AP, is a freelance architecture writer and a contributing editor to Contract Magazine and e-Oculus.