Ecological design handbook

(1999)
Status Reading

Author Fred A. Stitt

Publisher McGraw-Hill

Type Architecture

Main Topics:
Ecolology
Study of architecture
Site
Passive solar houses

Site:

Begin with the strategy of studying nature - not nature in itself - but THE
NATURE OF THING

The site is not a canvas, and the architect is not a painter

Respect the living nature of the land - the soil is alive

Different maps:

Local zoning map and its related requirements

Soil conservation service surveys: search: “US department of

agriculture”

Countys assessors tax roll maps. County Government in the phone

book.

Aerial Photographs

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 Historic maps

International climate maps. (Climate zones and similar zones, climatic

responsive building patterns)

Track the construction:

Domestic water

Sewage

Runoff

Electricity

Natrual gas

Soil and rock type material for ground

Relationship

Views

Sky

Trees

Animals

Where you are most

Comfortable

At peace.

Solar house:

Maximize southern exposure

Rectangular house: orienting the house so the long axis runs from east to
west.

Summer: sun follows higher and longer path

Overhangs in the south windows and wals to help shade and

protect from overheating.

Map the surroundings: There should be no solar obstruction shadows

between 9am and 3pm, solar time, in the winter. (north carolina)

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 45 degrees east of south and 45 degrees west of south should be kept
clear of obstructions wich could block the sun.

Obstruction directly to south: locate 1.7 x its height away

Obstruction in the 45 degree line east or west: locate 3.5 x its height
away to not get shading

An ecological approach to landscape planning:

Applied human ecology: Analyse the problems of a region as they relate to

each other, the landscape, to the national and local political economic
structure.

Ecology: study of the relationship of all living things, including people, to

their biological and physical enviornments.

Ecological planning: the use of biophysical and sociocultural information to

suggest opportunities and constraints for decisionmaking about the use of
the landscape.

Elements:

Drainage

Social elements

Human ecology: The way people interact with each other and their
enviorments. Interaction provide a measure of belonging, it affects identity
versus alienation from enviornment. The system of obligation, responibility
and liability is definded through interation. Interesting to public interests.

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 the passive solar concept:

Thermosiphoning - Felix Trombe.

Keep it simple and let nature help you.

Make use of low angle sun in the winter

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 Calculation of solar energy and power

latutude 0-50 degrees: ca 950 watt per sq meter.

Inside the house:

Thermal mass

Energy needs

Foundation, envelope and roof heat loss

Solar energy

Wind energy:

Axis, horisontal and vertical winds, lift and drag, angle of attack,
aerodynamic.

Earth construction: adobe

Sraw construction: straw, bale and bamboo

Soft quality

Insulating

Acoustic

Energy efficient

Passive cooling systems

Seismic resistance

Affordability

The use of REUSE:

Conservation of resources

Waste

Building materials

Pallets

Water

Energy

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 Personal participation

Minimize

Pollution

New building energy

Wasted resources

Puchase cost

Disposal fees

Indoor air quality: “Sick building syndrome”

“Designing for indoor air quality”

Ecological design requires quessing in advance whar you want to do in your

home

Ventilation: HRV ( Heat recovery ventilator) Best when big temp diff. Can
recover some of the energy spent on heating the air and reusing it.

Filtration

Rammed earth, adobe, clay gives warmer feeling and better air quality to
sensitive people.

Make an oasis - a shelter from contaminated areas.

Communities.

A village community?

Rarely use imported labour and reuse local materials, creates a social
structure and community

Co build, co manages, co owned

Common and private spaces.

Egological building:

Food production

Local materials

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 Economically accessible

Cultural value

Sun and wind powered

Waste utilization

electronic technologies

“The living machine” (s. 378→)

Primary energy source is sun.

Light weight materials - almost like a shell.

Organisms of all types housed within a lightwight casing structure. Like a

convensional machine it puts the interlaced parts together in the function
for some type of performance.

Can be designed to produce food, fuels, treat wastes, purify air, regulate
climates, or even all of these thungs.

Designed by the principles of the natural world:

Regulating great forests of ecologies , lakes, praries

Have hydrological and mineral cycles like the planet.

Contained enviornment.

Parts from other ecosystems:

Funghi, bacteria, protozoands, animals, higher plants from all over the
world, threatened species.

An ecological digester - the living machine required animal filter feeders

and detritus eaters to function.

The function of the system is somewhat artificial, in that the interaction

between the parts are actioned by humans.

Restored degraded waters, several fundamental principles of designing

living technologies, making sustainable living technologies.

The principles:

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 1. Microbial communities

2. Photosynthetic communities

3. Linked ecosystems and the law of the minimum

4. Pulsed exchanges

5. Nutrient and micronutrient reservoirs

6. Geologigal diversity and mineral complexity.

7. Steep gradients

8. Phylogenic diversity

9. The microcosm as a tiny mirror image of the macrocosm.

Reference: The green machine. Los Angeles low income housing project.
Ecological self sufficient, movable comfortable living units with big communial
spaces, preservation of land and Asthetic pleasure.

Quotes:
Ken yeang: External walls should act like a filter that has
vaiable parts to controll good cross ventilation, solar
protection, regulate wind sweapt rain and discarche heavy
rain.

All life is holy

Then along comes the bloody International Style and says

the same stupid stencil is co-equally suitable for everyone,
everywhere. So that everywhere, whether Reykjavik, or
Glasgow, or Hong Kong, or Singapore, or New York, they

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 have the same stupid, bloody buildings made, obviously, for
termites or lobotomized human beings. Why? Because of
their abstractions.
They've got nothing to do with human physiology, human
psychology, and certainly nothing to do with geology,
hydrology, rocks, salts, plants, or animals!
How can a tradition which has lasted for the whole history of
man be so quickly aban-doned? Well, it has been! The
question is, can we retrieve it? I don't know whether we can
or cannot. Should we retrieve it? Of course.

Ecology definition:

What is meant by ecological planning?

Planning is a process which, utilizes scientific and technical

information for considering and reaching consensus on a
range of choices. Ecology is the study of the relationship of
all living things, including people, to their biological and
physical en-vironments. Ecological planning may be defined
as the use of biophysical and sociocultural information to
suggest opportunities and constraints for consensual
decision-making about the use of the landscape. Ian McHarg
has summarized a framework for ecological planning in the
following way:

"All systems aspire to survival and success. This state can

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 be described as syntropic-fitness-health. Its antithesis is
entropic-misfitness-morbidity. To achieve the first state
requires systems to find the fittest environment, adapt it and
themselves. Fitness of an environment for a system is
defined as that requiring the minimum of work and
adaptation. Fitness and fitting are indications of health and
the process of fitness is health giving. The quest for fitness
is entitled adaptation. Of all the instrumentalities available
for man for successful adapta-tion, cultural adaptation in
general and planning in particular, appear to be the most
direct and efficacious for maintaining and enhancing human
health and well-being.

Arthur Johnson explained the central principle of this theory:

"The fittest environment for any organism, artifact, natural

and social
ecosystem, is that environment which provides the [energy]
needed to sustain the health or well-being of the
organism/artifact/ecosystem. Such an approach is not
limited by scale. It may be applied to locating plants within a
garden as well as to the development of a nation."15<

The ecological planning method is primarily a procedure for studying the

biophysical and sociocultural systems of a place to reveal where a specific land
use may be best practiced. As

with no ongoing chaos, there can be no ongoing creation -

Ralph abraham.

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