Courtesy RVTR/Team North
The systems in the North House can be accessed in a variety of w…
Designed and built for the 2009 U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon, this solar-powered, 800-square-foot prototype house is tailor-made for northern climates. The project combines a responsive louver and building-integrated solar-panel skin with a savvy interior that contributes to the overall building performance.
Any architect pursuing LEED points knows that the actions of the occupant can have more impact on a building’s energy performance than any single technology, so the team concentrated on developing a building management system—called the Adaptive Living Interface System (ALIS)—that is both easy to use and informative. The program collects data and monitors energy use and production, water use, and indoor and outdoor environmental conditions. This information can be accessed via a Web-based application that parses the data and can track patterns over months or years.
Since changes can be made and monitored in real time, touchscreen panels are integrated throughout the house and translate information into a dollar figure of savings or expenditures for the day. And to make monitoring simple, the design team based the system on open-source calendar and social networking softwares that are easy to use and require no new learned skills. It was this level of integration that intrigued juror Cristobal Correa. “They looked at all the systems and they talk about the user. It’s very important for these things to actually interact with the user—this house is like a living thing,” he said.
Energy usage is also minimized by the smart interior design, which incorporates elements such as a custom cellular ceiling. Composed of 4,500 individually formed cones, the ceiling is made from window-shade material that helps to absorb reflected sound and direct light from the perimeter further into the core of the space, an added functionality that impressed juror Frank Barkow. “I really like the ceiling idea,” he said, “especially the components that made it and how it was conditioned by local and general lighting conditions.” The jury admired the house’s overall combination of form and function, but it was the monitoring system that especially caught their attention.
Project Credits
RVTR/Team North
Client
University of Waterloo
Architect
RVTR Architects, Toronto—Kathy Velikov, Geoffrey Thün, Colin Ripley, Zain Abuseir, Matt Storus
Structural
Blackwell Bowick Partnership—David Bowick, Cory Zurell
Faculty Team
Geoffrey Thün (primary investigator); Kathy Velikov, David Lieberman, John Straube (sustainability and building science); Michael Collins (solar thermal); Philip Beesley, Donald McKay, Rick Haldenby, Alan Fung, Lyn Bartram (interaction design); Rob Woodbury (chair, advisory board)
Graduate Student Architectural Team
Lauren Barhydt (project management and engineering systems coordination); Chris Black (architectural design, envelope); Chloe Doesburg (architectural design, prefabrication logics, and contract administration); Maun Demchenko (media and public relations); Natalie Jackson (landscape systems and transportation logistics); Jen Janzen (interior design); Bradley Paddock (construction logics and prototyping); Matt Peddie, Allan Wilson (ceiling systems development); Andrea Hunniford, Lindsey Nette, David Schellingerhoudt, Kevin Schorn, Sonya Storey-Fleming, Jamie Usas, Eric Bury, Wade Brown, Andrew Haydon, Hayley Isaacs, Chris Knight, Farid Noufailly
Graduate Student Engineering Team
Brent Crowhurst (electrical and controls); Ivan Lee (engineering coordination and building science); Bart Lomanowski (energy modeling); Sebastien Brideau, Andrew Marston, Toktam Saied, Humphrey Tse (mechanical); Fabio Almeida, Aya Dembo, Brittany Hanam, Raqib Omer Mian, Omar Siddiqui
Interaction Design Student Team
Rob Mackenzie, Kevin Muise, Johnny Rodgers, Davis Marques, Kush Bubbar, Jin Fan, Yin He, Jenny Thai
Industry Partners
Controls Design
Vertech Solutions—Chris Brandson; Embedia Technologies—Reid Blumell
Mechanical
Eco-Options Geosolar—Al Davies; Ecologix Heating Technologies—Steve Davies; Slatus Air—Gord Walsh; Goldwater Solar Services—Aaron Goldwater
Electrical
Red Electric—Robin Sanders, Dan Pelkman, Nicolas Stroeder
Plumbing
Laurie Johnson, Wladyslaw Iwaniec
Kitchen Systems
Bulthaup Canada—Antje Bulthaup, Stefan Sybydlo
Logistics, Fabrication, Installation
MCM 2001—Gregory Rybak, Sean Baldwin (owners); Jacek Debski (project manager and detail development); Witek Jasinski (crew lead); Mikola Minzak, Luke Statkiewicz, Lukasz Szczepanek, Maks Matuszewski, Philip Lesniak, Adam Golaszewski, Richard Pelly, Zbigniew Gembora, Ryszard Goryl, Krzyzstof Plaza, Krzyzstof Banasek, Pawel Noga, Jan Sawczak, Piotr Dabrowski, Oleg Izvekov (dynamics design); Danny Pietrangelo
Photography
Geoffrey Thün
