Landscape » BC No. 3: Sustainable Design in Miami

Prime Air Progress Report- Stage 1

Project Goals

Prime Air project begins its design phase. The team starts researching the site and getting familiar with the client””””s perception of value for the project. Prime Air is a supplier of airplane parts to worldwide clients and specific program requirements get the team doing their homework!

The studies lead the team to conclude on four main design ideas for Prime Air Headquarters:

integrate the three disciplines of architecture, interior design and landscape in the design of the project.
provide a solution to assist the company in the transition of employees having private offices to an open work-space environment.
maximize user groups”””” access to natural light
maintain the original industrial aesthetics in the indoor spaces while also strengthening the Art-Deco cues on the existing facade.

The program component of Prime Air also has challenging goals. The team must keep the extended work area within a 3,000 sq ft footprint so not too much space is taken from the storage area required. Addition of conference and fitness rooms must be addressed as well. Building Center No. 3 starts sketching schemes that comply with the desired goals for Prime Air.

Assembling the Team

BC3 puts together a team of two architects, a landscape architect and an interior designer to develop the design and construction document phases of this project. The team members are:

Jason Tapia AIA, LEED AP, NCARB is a registered architect in Florida and New York. He earned a B. Arch at Cornell University and an M.S. in Architecture Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been practicing architecture for fifteen years and is a Principal at Building Center No. 3, LLC. Areas of expertise include the design of buildings using life cycle assessment tools, building performance modeling and passive design strategies. He currently resides in Miami, FL.

Anaclaudia Magalhaes is a landscape designer who completed her studies at Florida International University. She earned her Associates in Arts in the discipline of architecture at Miami Dade College. She is originally from Brazil but has resided in Miami, FL for the past 10 years. Her academic work focus includes investigating context-driven concept solutions fostering community and environment. She currently works at Building Center No.3.

Patricia S. Borba earned a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Florida International University. She is working on her professional Bachelor of Architecture as well as a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from Florida Atlantic University. Patricia is a designer and trained architect currently at Building Center No. 3. She is originally from Brazil and has lived in South Florida since 2001. Her career focuses on researching and practicing environmentally responsible design while producing high performance buildings.

Yamile Leon is an Interior Designer at Building Center No. 3. She has earned a Bachelor of Arts in Interior Design and minored in Fine Arts at Florida International University. She is currently working on a Master of Arts in Architecture. Her work focuses on meeting the needs of the user through an aesthetic, conceptually-driven design that relates to the exterior environment.

Research-Based Concept

BC3 decides to target the project””s goal of integrating the three disciplines by the creation of a Green Zone that will tie the outside area with the insides spaces of the building. The transition from private office to an open work-space will be eased by using the concept of “neighborhoods” to define a more private zone within an open area. Natural light will be addressed with the positioning of the rooms on the South side of the workspace, leaving the open area facing the facade with the most glazing. Prime Air is now ready to enter phase 2…

-PSB

Sustainable Design in Miami

http://www.bcnumber3.com

Praça da Cultura – Stage 3

After six weeks from its beginning, Praça da Cultura is now complete. The team has designed a public square with spaces that are flexible for multiple uses and also unique to the context of the city. The concept of the linkage element has evolved and this element became the pathways interconnecting the programmatic zones. These zones developed a circular motif defining their boundaries physically and visually while opening up when the motifs meet the linkage element. The main water body retained its conceptual expression of a central feature in the design.

The recreational space provides an open field for playing sports, such as soccer which is very popular in Brazil. The fitness area provides the users with fixed workout stations while having access to the linkage element that guides one through the other amenities. The main boulevard separates North and South zones and it is hierarchically differentiated by lining the street edge with Tabebuia trees. This street is converted into pedestrian-only public space and can be closed off for special events. In order to strengthen the relationship between the community and the civic entities, the space directly South of the courthouse was designed to be a seating area that can be converted to a local artist exhibition space for community events. A water feature containing jets gives the pedestrians a closer connection with the water. The skating rink is a familiar amenity for Brazilians and the design creates a relationship with the water body. At the Northwest terminal point the design provides for an outdoor theater where a range of cultural activities can occur.

The design closely follows precepts of LEED by creating an area for bicycle racks, applying universal design requirements, maintaining the site””””””””s open visibility, creating shaded pathways, and promoting community involvement. The project also addresses concerns of appropriate plant selection to mitigate water usage. The plants chosen are indigenous or have proven to be hardy in the city””s climate. In addition, there are areas where pervious paving is proposed in order to help recharge the water table after rainfall.

The design proposal successfully combines sustainable strategies with meaningful amenities for the local population. The linkage element provides multiple pathways cutting through the site and guiding the pedestrians to the amenities. There are spaces dedicated to specific uses as well as flexible spaces for events and community gatherings. The design brought back the connection between the town’s residents and a water feature while providing emotional and environmental significance.

-PSB

Sustainable Design in Miami

http://www.bcnumber3.com

Architectonica Geo Hires BC3 as a Consultant

source:http://www.miasci.org/blog/

Arquitectonica Geo has hired Building Center No. 3 to write the specifications for the landscape component of the Miami Science Museum. BC3 is providing the technical expertise to assist in making the project successful. The building””s expected construction completion is in 2014.

-PSB

Sustainable Design in Miami

http://www.bcnumber3.com

Praça da Cultura – Stage 2

Praça da Cultura has now entered schematic design phase. Research of precedence studies and seed inspirational images begin to generate ideas for the development of the project (01-04). The team also studied the native plans of the area and their connection to the local culture which could influence the design of the project. In discussions with the locals it was observed that they lamented the loss of the water body located on the site years ago. The design ideas seek to reconnect the people with the water and give back the sense of nature in the site.

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Programmatic diagrams are developed to analyze the optimal functions of the proposed site plan. A hybrid study of programmatic zones is then created to establish major functions such as the insertion of a water body as a central element in the project and the creation of recreational spaces for the public (05). The team then starts developing design schemes to express these ideas. Image 06 shows a scheme where the green areas represent a strong physical and visual connection with the Northeast side of the park. The design is expressed through rectilinear motifs that would later dictate the placement of landscape and courtyards. Image 7 takes the more literal interpretation of the water as a central element and emphasizes the central placement of the water body. Circulation happens around the periphery of the site and an athletic center is proposed on the North side. Image 08 is a scheme that expresses the idea of the linkage element concept. This linkage element runs along the park interlinking the programmatic zones. The water in this scheme runs along the edge of the project to attract pedestrians into the square. This water sequence then connects to the main body of water on the Southern area of the site. With so many ideas, the team now needs to develop a hybrid design that addresses the successful strategies of each scheme. To be continued…

(06)

-PSB

Sustainable Design in Miami

http://www.bcnumber3.com

Praça da Cultura – Stage 1

Project Goals

The Praça da Cultura Competition is located in a public square in Alagoas, Brazil. The theme of the competition is open but the sociocultural impact and sustainability are questions that must be considered by the teams. The inclusion or exclusion of urban facilities could be proposed thus determining the future use of the square. The Praça da Cultura project may be LEED certified in the future by the Green Building Council of Brazil and for that reason the project needs to meet the requirements to be certified at the basic level, which requires a minimum of 40 points. The goals of the project were to provide a site plan that took advantage of the spaces views of the location while ascertaining the needs of the end users.

Assembling the Team

BC3 has arranged a team of three architects and a landscape designer who are ready to tackle this competition. One of the architects resides in Brazil and is familiar with the local culture of the site. This international and multidisciplinary group of skilled team members will work together to solve the challenges of this interesting site.

Jason Tapia AIA, LEED AP, NCARB is a registered architect in Florida and New York. He earned a B. Arch at Cornell University and an M.S. in Architecture Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been practicing architecture for thirteen years and is a Principal at Building Center No. 3, LLC. Areas of expertise include the design of buildings using life cycle assessment tools, building performance modeling and passive design strategies. He currently resides in Miami, FL.

Deborah Buelow LEED AP has eight years of experience practicing architecture New York and Boston. She earned her B.Arch from Iowa State University and an M.S. in Architecture Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a focus on Architecture and Urbanism. Her projects have ranged in scale from furniture to urban design, but her interest lies in making urban space more habitable. She currently resides and is practicing in Boston, MA.

Sergio Augusto Faroni is a registered architect and a civil engineer with a degree from FAAP – Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado – Sao Paulo – Brazil. Sergio is currently working in the city of Sao Paulo and is the principal/owner of Faroni Paisagismo Ltda. He works with landscape and sustainability projects internationally.

Research-Based Concept

Our research of the site revealed the opportunity for the project to serve as a civic as well as a recreational space. The Praça da Cultura project starts to explore the design of spaces that are flexible and unique to the context of the city of Penedo while also enhancing civic pride and possibly becoming a tourist attraction. The concept idea consisted of a linkage element that interconnects the project””s programmatic zones physically and visually. This linkage element also organizes these zones in a ritual path from the North to the South side which are separated by the pedestrian axis. The programmatic zones become expressed by motifs that repeat itself throughout the site. The ideas are rolling and Praça da Cultura will soon start developing its shape.

-PSB

Sustainable Design in Miami

http://www.bcnumber3.com

Victoria Park Competition Win!

BC3’s landscape designer AnaClaudia Magalhaes wins a landscape competition sponsored by a condo association located in the historic district of Victoria Park. The scope of work included alterations to the exterior of the building, and landscaping of the courtyard, pool area, and the east side of the site. The design solution needed to address the lack of shade and seating in the courtyard and pool areas. It was also observed that the residents enjoyed using those spaces for barbeques and gardening. These observations were taken in consideration in the design proposal.

The design approach was geared towards maximizing residents comfort and promoting engagement with the space by offering a seating area with views to the proposed herb gardens and barbeque area where residents will have the opportunity to entertain family and friends. The pool area was defined with a trellis/ fence creating privacy from the parking area and adjacent streets. Minimalist materials were chosen to create a neutral relationship with the architecture features of the building and accentuate the color of the planting material. The planting selection was based on Florida native’s drought tolerant planting materials and their inclusion in the design added color and texture to the space. Permeable paving was applied to the parking area to mitigate the water runoff and minimize the heat island effect generated from the existing asphalt parking. The proposed permeable technology also cools the pool area giving the resident’s a comfortable lounging space. Construction and installation is scheduled for Spring 2012.

-PSB

Sustainable Design in Miami

http://www.bcnumber3.com

Prime Air Win!

www.heico.com/PrimeAir-PrimeAirEurope

Building Center No 3 wins Prime Air project! Prime Air is a supplier of quality aircraft parts to the worldwide commercial, regional and corporate aircraft aftermarket. BC3 is now designing the company””””s headquarters located in Miami-Fl. The scope of work includes redesigning the entire interior floor plan, some exterior alterations and an addition of a landscape component. The program will include office spaces, conference rooms, a fitness room, an outdoor patio, and a warehouse storage area. This project is up and running by a team of two architects, an interior designer and a landscape architect.

-PSB

Sustainable Design in Miami

http://www.bcnumber3.com

Sustainable by Necessity – Stage 3

SBN has reached full development (01-02). We have designed a 1,281 sq ft home that addresses affordability and sustainability while also providing the infrastructure for incremental growth over time (03). One way affordability is addressed in SBN is the concept of incremental growth. Though a family may have limited means today, the proposal provides the necessary structure to expand the home and add an income producing unit on the flat roof of the master bedroom suite. The LGW (Living Green Walls) can be transformed to support the roof of a future carport. By creating two wings of the home, the proposal seeks to highlight the importance of the dining room and open kitchen as the heart of the home. The bedrooms private nature contrasts with that of the other more public spaces. The dining space mediates and provides the bridge at the axial shift that occurs in plan (04). The designed site plan provides seating areas on the North and South sides and rainwater harvesting tanks along the East and West facades (05).

Saving energy over the operating phase of the home requires an airtight envelope, good insulation in the roof and walls, quality windows and exterior shading to reduce solar heat gain. The building envelope is comprised of the exterior shading in the form of the living green wall (LGW), insulated glass units, structural insulated panels (SIPs) R-22, and a white standing seam metal roof with R-30 insulation as required by code (06). On the South side of the home 24 inch overhangs are provided together with the LGWs to shade both the windows and walls. Inside SBN, the choice of flooring materials speaks to the different zones of the project. The public zone is treated with resilient flooring. Carpet was chosen as the flooring option for the private zones (07). The color of the interior walls followed the same concept. The public spaces are represented by three different colors that also make reference to the landscape (08).

Smaller homes use less material and less energy. As mentioned, the proposal is sized at 1281sf. The total estimated cost construction cost is $129K (10).The savings in size allows more money for exterior improvements and the hybrid HVAC system. Affordability needs to shift away from a simple consideration of upfront costs towards life cycle costs. Regular maintenance homes have a potential life cycle of over 60 years. A family considering an affordable sustainable home should also consider monthly expenses that a well-designed home can reduce compared to a conventional home. Examples in this proposal are:

1) energy use

2) water conservation

Both are elements that contribute significantly to monthly expenses and both are costs that over time will only increase. This proposal reduces the carbon and water footprint of the home (11) but requires additional upfront costs that can be recovered over the life cycle of the home. When the savings, annually, is capitalized, the initial investment is further justified. ATHENA was used to calculate carbon equivalents and Energy Plus to calculate energy performance. Given the humidity in all three regions, natural air ventilation is ineffective. Instead the proposal uses a hybrid system (12):

1) dehumidifier

2) 220 sf of hot water collector coils

3) fan coil unit

4) heat pump.

The system yields a 40% annual energy savings over a conventional split unit system used in isolation. This allows the hybrid system to achieve a higher Coefficient of Performance (COP). Annual kWH for the proposal are 11,000 kWH, with peak cooling at 4000 kWH. SBN has now attempted to redefine affordable and sustainable housing in 21^st century Florida.

-PSB

Sustainable Design in Miami

http://www.bcnumber3.com

Sustainable by Necessity – Stage 2

Sustainable by Necessity enters conceptual design phase. The relationship between public and private zones began to be studied maintaining our concept ideas of living green walls (LGW) that fuse landscape with architecture and solar orientation sensitivity to decrease energy consumption(01-03). Our collaborative team then established a need for the separation of public and private zones being connected by a transitional space. With that in mind, schematic studies began to develop (04-06). We established the square footage for each program and initiated research studies on adjacency and positioning. A skewed scheme was created to address solar orientation (04). SBN is now developing its preliminary form (07-09).

In our research, we found that most places in Florida 60% of domestic water use is consumed by irrigation. Additionally, throughout the state each county charges consumption fees that may cost the average single family home approximately $40 a month. Our project seeks to eliminate the 60% of irrigation consumption by two key elements that require up front investments: rain water catchment from the roof and gray water filtration (10). In our chosen scheme there are no LGW (living green walls) on the North side. Alternatively, the LGWs can be installed alongside the home at points needed to provide shelter from the sun: in front of windows, enclosing gardens or outdoor space, or even transforming to serve as structural support. The LGW has a “genesis” which begins at the kitchen and spread as would branches from a single point (11). The chosen design also adapts to solar orientation by shifting the axis in plan to provide more open outdoor activity space on the North side of the home and limited but more private outdoor space on the South side of the home (12). The green wall system can be successful even when the sun is at the top or bottom of the plan –the system would simply be installed on solar South.

The proposal’s idea of regionalism and context specificity is also demonstrated by the strategy of dividing the State of Florida into three regions: North, Central and South for the purpose choosing the appropriate plants for the living green walls that serve as exterior shading devices around the home and the rain garden in the front yard that acts as a constructed wetland in lieu of water intensive turf (13).

-PSB

Sustainable Design in Miami

http://www.bcnumber3.com

Sustainable by Necessity – Stage 1

Project Goals

The Sustainable by Necessity (SBN) Competition project addresses the growing need for affordable and sustainable housing in the State of Florida. The goal is for this project to be understood as the prototype that will shape the direction of housing design in the 21st Century Florida. As a result of its large size, Florida contains diverse climate characteristics in the three different regions of North, Central and South. Our team proposed a design that could be situated in any infill lot within the three areas. The proposed project was designed focusing on affordable construction costs and sustainability.

Assembling the Team

Building Center No. 3 has put together a selective team with various strengths to succeed in this competition. Our team is staffed with two architects, a landscape designer, an interior designer and a mechanical engineer. This is a multidisciplinary and collaborative union to solve the issues of sustainable and affordable housing in Florida. We have a skilled team and we have taken on the challenge!

Jason Tapia AIA, LEED AP, NCARB is a registered architect in Florida and New York. He earned a B. Arch at Cornell University and an M.S. in Architecture Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been practicing architecture for thirteen years and is a Principal at Building Center No. 3, LLC. Areas of expertise include the design of buildings using life cycle assessment tools, building performance modeling and passive design strategies. He currently resides in Miami, FL.

Patricia S. Borba earned a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Florida International University. She is working on her professional Bachelor of Architecture from Florida Atlantic University. Patricia is a designer and trained architect currently at Building Center No. 3. She is originally from Brazil and has lived in South Florida since 2001. Her career focuses on researching and practicing environmentally responsible design while producing high performance buildings.

Jahmairi Sainz is an Interior Designer at Building Center No. 3. She earned a BFA at Miami International University of Art & Design. In her work she seeks to transcend the conventional boundaries of design disciplines and instead focus on drawing inspiration from both the tectonic and the emotive: object, material, space and form. By fusing on strong concepts with insight into the personal needs of her clients she creates habitable and meaningful spaces that reflect their objectives.

Tea Zakula is currently Research Assistant and PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She earned a Dipl. Ing. degree at Zagreb University, Croatia and a M.S. in Building Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Areas of expertise include HVAC systems, with a concentration in efficient cooling in buildings, natural ventilation, daylighting, thermal comfort, air quality, and energy modeling.

Research-Based Concept

The key levers of control in sustainability are: geographic location and relationship with the Sun. Our main concept ideas were:

1) Living green walls that fuse landscape with architecture

2) A hybrid HVAC system to reduce energy consumption

3) Rainwater collection and a gray water filtration system to improve water conservation

4) Demonstrate solar orientation sensitivity to improve energy efficiency and space allocation.

-PSB

Sustainable Design in Miami

http://www.bcnumber3.com