Tag: EHDD

2012 Fellow Edward Dean, FAIA

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Edward Dean, FAIA; Geschke Learning Resource Center, University of San Francisco, EHDD

Edward Dean has advanced the practice of sustainable architecture on multiple fronts: regulation, education, research, publication and the design of new buildings and renovations that raise the bar for sustainable design and low-energy performance.

Ed played a key early role in the implementation of the State of California’s Title 24 building energy efficiency standards, a model for the nation. In 1976, for the California Energy Commission, he developed compliance methods for Title 24; the non-residential compliance manual that he wrote was the first of its kind in the nation. Subsequently, he created a monograph on low-energy design principles that the California Board of Architectural Examiners distributed to all the state’s licensed architects. In addition, he designed and led training programs in low-energy buildings for the California Division of the State Architect.

Illustrations from Zero Net Energy Design, technical report to

Pacific Gas & Electric Company, by Edward Dean.

As a design educator from 1974 to 1984, Ed was a leader in what was then known as “ecological architecture” or “passive design.” At UC Berkeley, he created a new part of the curriculum focusing on these issues, which is essentially still in place today. His design studio courses emphasized climate-responsive, energy-efficient design, including an innovative integrated design course in which students used building analysis software—this was in 1980—to study the energy performance of their own work. In the mid-1970s, Ed was a key member of the founding group at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) that ultimately became the renowned Center for Building Science, a significant national research unit under the U.S. Department of Energy, which has had a nationwide impact on the development of low-energy building design.

After serving as an educator, Ed turned to mainstream professional practice to apply these principles to the design of the built environment. Working for EHDD for more than a dozen years, he was responsible for the design of projects that incorporated many ideas routinely used today: maximum daylighting, living roofs, climate-tempering atriums, and solar-responsive openings. Principal examples include the Main Library Addition at UC Berkeley (underground location, living roof, major day-lighting features), completed in 1994, and the Business Education Building at the University of Alaska, Anchorage (super insulation, climate-tempering atrium), completed in 1988.

Ed is a leader in the design of zero-net-energy (ZNE) buildings. His ZNE library for the City of Berkeley, one of the nation’s first ZNE libraries, will be completed in 2013.

Zero Net Energy Branch Library, Berkeley, Harley Ellis Devereaux.

Through publications, presentations and AIA webinars, Ed continues to teach and encourage architectural practitioners to incorporate sustainable design. For the AIASF Committee on the Environment (COTE), he coordinated a presentation series on the design of ZNE public buildings in 2010 and a second series on Materials Choices for Healthy Buildings in 2011. He was a principal presenter at a heavily attended Daylighting Intensive session at Greenbuild 2006.

 

Marin Country Day School, Marin, CA

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Marin Country Day School, AIACC Design Awards, Merit Award

Photo © Tim Griffith

Marin Country Day School, AIACC Design Awards, Merit Award

Photo © Tim Griffith

Marin Country Day School, AIACC Design Awards, Merit Award

Photo © Tim Griffith

2012 MERIT AWARD FOR ARCHITECTURE

Marin Country Day School, Marin, CA

Architect: EHDD

This award-winning K-8 school, is an independent, coed school with 540 students. It has the distinction of being the first zero energy school building in North America. The school is nestled into nature on an idyllic campus located north of San Francisco.

Click here to view project submittal form.

 

My 2012 AIA Convention

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culvahouse650

AIA Convention

Doug Aitken’s Song 1, a 360-degree multimedia projection on the exterior of the Hirshhorn Museum.


Everyone’s AIA Convention is unique, of course. Even the most diligent conventioneer, skipping lunch and eschewing the half-day or daylong tours, can attend (by my swaggering estimate) at most 4% of the events. Knuckling down, she can wrap up her CE requirements for the year, learn a few things (and rehash a few more), quaff a couple of bottles of wine (over the course of the four days, I mean), and enjoy friends, old and new. She will hear the distinguished keynote speakers—historian David McCullough, architect/public servant Hon. Shaun Donovan—and the keynote appreciation for the architects involved in the several 9/11 projects. In stolen moments between sessions, she’ll visit dozens of the roughly gazillion-and-a-quarter vendors on the Exposition floor—and she’ll win an iPad.

Then there’s me. Certain that the Fellows Investiture is on Friday (it’s always on Friday, right?), I’ll miss that stunning occasion at the National Cathedral (which was only available for the AIA’s use on Thursday) The only good thing about missing it was that I actually got to the AIA California Council New Fellows Reception on time, unlike the new Fellows themselves, who were stuck in traffic.

From there to the Tulane School of Architecture alumni reception, at a restaurant called Acadiana, which is located catty-cornered across from the convention hotel. The proximity is suspicious: Who picks the hotel, anyway?

And from there to the Newseum for the Host Chapter Party. A bit too big and rambling for a party—the crowd was not nearly dense enough to ignite fiery, accidental conversations—but I did have my first revelatory encounter. I had met Erica Rioux Gees, AIA, the director of the AIA’s Legacy Foundation, once before, but had not had the chance to get to know her. We met again, here, over the buffet, and I learned that she has been coordinating an AIA project in Haiti, as part of the recovery effort there. That’s the sort of thing that we want to know that our national headquarters is doing.

Architecture’s role in disaster recovery and in the service of beleaguered communities generally was one of two “threads” I followed at the convention. On Friday, I joined in the toast celebrating the new partnership between the AIA and Public Architecture. The partnership encourages “AIA members to pledge to The 1%, a nationwide program of Public Architecture that challenges architecture and design firms to commit a minimum of 1% of their time to pro bono service and facilitates a matching service to connect firms with nonprofits seeking pro bono design services.”

AIA Convention, Tim Culvahouse

The author with curators of the U.S. Pavilion for the 2012 Venice Biennale, Cathy Lang Ho (left) and Anne Guiney of the Institute for Urban Design

Around and about the toast, I learned about the campaign to fund the U.S. Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale. This year’s curators, working under the auspices of the Institute for Urban Design, are Cathy Lang Ho, contributing editor to Architect magazine and founding editor-in-chief of The Architect’s Newspaper; Ned Cramer, editor-in-chief of Architect; and David van der Leer, assistant curator of architecture and urban studies at the Guggenheim. The theme of the pavilion is “Spontaneous Interventions: design actions for the common good”; it will “frame an archive of compelling, actionable strategies, ranging from urban farms to guerilla bike lanes, temporary architecture to poster campaigns, urban navigation apps to crowd-sourced city planning.” Curating the pavilion is a huge challenge, as the curators must raise all of the funds to execute it, and they only learned of their selection this past fall. I’m sending them a contribution; you can, too, through the IUD’s Pay-Pal portal, here.

Along similar lines, the Institute celebrated the 45th anniversary of its R/UDAT (Regional/Urban Design Assistance Teams) program. You can see an inspiring mini-documentary of the program, with interviews of R/UDAT participants, including Maybeck Award-winner Chuck Davis, FAIA, here.

John Peterson, AIA, founder and president of Public Architecture, spoke later in the day as part of a panel on leadership, but I opted instead for the other thread I was following: a session on social media. Shortly after, all jazzed up by the possibilities, I attended a Tweet-Up, which turns out to be an occasion for People Who Tweet to meet—in person!—other People Who Tweet, and for People Who Don’t to become People Who Do. I have lately been making the transition from a Who-Don’t to a Who-Do, so I enjoyed the camaraderie. Also, I won an AIA key fob as a door prize (although, strictly speaking, there was no door, just a nook on the Expo floor). I met some young AIA staffers who are working on K-12 education initiatives, and they advised me on the best way to express “Cool!” in a tweet; we settled on “Tight.” See my tweet about the key fob here.

AIA Convention

The setting sun honors the 2012 class of Fellows at the National Building Museum


Saturday was for relaxing, catching up on sleep, and enjoying the gorgeous weather. Saturday evening was the Fellowship Convocation Dinner, where all of the non-Californians were shaking their heads over how many of the new fellows—twenty per cent—were from California. The experience of the new Fellows was bracketed by two remarkable spaces—the National Cathedral and, for the dinner, the National Building Museum. A fabulous place for the sun to set on the 2012 AIA Convention.

AIA Convention

Doug Aitken’s Song 1, a 360-degree multimedia projection on the exterior of the Hirshhorn Museum

The only thing remaining was to cab over to the Mall to see Doug Aitken’s enthralling Song 1, in the company of the Three Es: EHDD, Eskew Dumez Ripple, and El Dorado Architects (and a little Basil Hayden in tiny plastic cups).

You’ll not want to miss Denver in 2013.

 

Californians Recognized by Wood Products Council for Exceptional Design

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Wood Products Council, Wood Works, wood awards, Cal Poly SLO, EHDD, David Baker + Partners, Tipping Mar, Structural Design Engineers

EHDD Architects of San Francisco and Tipping Mar of Berkeley won in the Green Building category for Marin Country Day School in Corte Madera, the first net zero-energy classroom building in North America, for the design team’s use of wood to provide a contemporary feel that blends in with the school’s natural surroundings.

David Baker + Partners and Structural Design Engineers of San Francisco won in the Multi-story/Mid-rise category for the Drs. Julian and Raye Richardson Apartments in San Francisco for how the use of wood provides benefits as a primary structural material that meets high seismic demands and serves as an aesthetically pleasing element in the building’s design.

In addition, the architecture department and students at California State Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo won a special award for innovation in wood design award for their “hanging bench”.

Focused on the western U.S., the awards included eight categories and were chosen from a pool of entries from firms across 11 states.

Photos of all of the winning projects are available on the WoodWorks website, along with a wide range of technical and educational resources for design and building professionals.

About WoodWorks
An initiative of the Wood Products Council, WoodWorks is a cooperative venture of major North American wood associations, research organizations and government agencies. It provides one-stop access to the widest possible range of information on the use of wood in non-residential and multi-family structures.

WoodWorks, a cooperative venture of major wood associations and organizations throughout North America. Awards were presented at the Long Beach Wood Solution Fair on February 29, 2012 and award winners from Oregon and Washington will be recognized at Wood Solution Fairs in Portland and Seattle on March 13 and 15 respectively.