Urbanism, Sustainability and Building Form

There is a term in metallurgy called ‘molecular interstitial space’, the space between a metal’s primary molecules that can be filled with other molecules to create an altogether new metal. It is an interesting parallel to the famed architect Louis Kahn’s reference of the city as a ‘society of rooms’, in which the most public spaces become the city’s ‘living rooms.’ The interrelated visibility between varying degrees of public, semi-public and private spaces is what constitutes our understanding of the public-ness of an urban environment. Similar conditions can be found or created within and around individual buildings through degrees of spatial porosity, opening a building to flexible uses above and beyond the prescribed programme.

Additionally, buildings must be designed with the environment in mind.

Combined with the desire to address the urban condition, the goal of an energy efficient structure drives its massing, siting and form. 

Its engineering and infrastructural systems are responsive to and in control of the management of natural resources. For example, paramount in achieving energy efficient buildings is the utilization of solar power, control and management of natural light, capturing of prevailing winds when possible, incorporation of advanced mechanical and geo-thermal systems for heating and cooling, control and management of water resources and the careful control of solar infiltration through advanced glazing systems and sun shading strategies.

This essay will illustrate this idea of environmental urbanism through two of our recent projects: The Grand Rapids Art Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the Pomona College Studio Art Hall in Claremont, California. Both these projects encourage interstitial spaces within their immediate boundaries. Simultaneously, clear sustainable strategies help determine their form, materiality and siting within specific contexts.

GRAND RAPIDS ART MUSEUM, MICHIGAN, UNITED STATES
(Designed as Founding Partner and Principal at wHY Architecture, with Kulapat Yantrasast, former Partner and Principal at wHY Architecture)

Grand Rapids is a small city in Michigan with a downtown of three to five-storey historic buildings, newer commercial buildings and defined streets. In the heart of downtown is the Rosa Park Circle and Ecliptic designed by Maya Lin: a park with a circular space inspired by the elements of water and sky. During winter, the Ecliptic becomes an ice-skating rink and during summer it is an Amphitheatre for music events and other public events. The Grand Rapids Art Museum faces this civic open space and is designed to both create an edge to the park and merge with Rosa Parks Circle, revitalizing its immediate civic neighborhood.

The Grand Rapids Art Museum is constructed of primarily exposed architectural concrete, with triple pane glass and aluminum louvres that provide thermal protection with a visual connection from the surrounding streets. The East Court of the building, a three-storey circulation atrium, has a 40-feet tall expanse of glass that allows controlled light to enter the building during the day and give views of the interior galleries during the evening, enhancing the visual connection between interior to exterior. The museum also opens up to Rosa Parks Circle, with the front portion of the building designed as a great civic portico, containing its most public spaces. Conversely, the park inserts its exterior spaces into the museum precinct, creating a sculpture garden, public terrace, pocket park with a reflecting pool and water feature.

This interweaving of semipublic space with the building creates interstitial spaces that allow for a variety of programmatic uses beyond those of the museum alone. The pocket park and public terrace are used for organized public events such as weddings and private dinners. The museum becomes not simply a civic structure to view art, but a place imbued with a variety of possibilities. The large museum lobby is also designed to hold a variety of functions such as concerts, movies, private dinners, lectures, galas and other public events.

The Grand Rapids Art Museum earned its title as the World’s First LEED Gold Certified Art Museum. To achieve this, its design developed four main aspects of energy efficient design.

First, it incorporates a state-of-the-art mechanical system called the Energy Wheel, transferring energy between exhaust air and intake air, and low velocity air-handling units help conserve electricity. Second, a grey water recovery system collects rain water and snow melt into four, 18,000 gallon cistern tanks to be used for landscape irrigation and toilet flushing. The water-reflecting pond is also a visible component of this grey water recovery system. Third, there is controlled natural light in the lobby, east court and other public spaces, due to the large expanses of triple pane thermally insulated ultra-violet glass with precisely angled exterior aluminum louvres. Natural light enters the space with minimal heat loss/gain reducing the need for artificial light in two-thirds of the building, thereby reducing electricity loads during the day by 20%. An inverted pyramid ceiling with three layers of light control indirectly reflects natural light down into the galleries resulting in low UV protected lighting levels. Finally, 58% of all material is from local sources. The concrete mix and finish materials were available within 500 miles from the building site. This further reduced energy consumption in the transport of building material to the site.

POMONA COLLEGE STUDIO ART HALL, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
(Designed as Founding Partner and Principal at wHY Architecture, with Kulapat Yantrasast, former Partner and Principal at wHY Architecture)

The Pomona College campus was developed under the master plan designed by architect Myron Hunt in 1908. The campus has a series of primary and secondary axes organized around a central quad. The Pomona College Studio Art Hall is sited at the eastern edge of the campus. It is designed with a central courtyard, not unlike the traditional courtyard buildings on campus.

The Studio Art Hall is a porous building. A number of exterior passages connect its large courtyard to adjacent public spaces of the campus, such as the neighboring theatre building’s exterior courtyard. Other spaces connect the courtyard to public walkways crossing the site, to the adjacent street and the open grove of native California Oak trees called the ‘Wash’. The Studio Art Hall is thus seamlessly engaged with its immediate physical surroundings.

The Studio Art Hall contains various art studios and classrooms with external and transitional spaces, all under a large, all-encompassing curved roof. The central courtyard is a flexible space for many activities, with its connections to the surroundings. The various connecting passages and spaces simultaneously create a transitional ‘interstitial’ zone for spontaneous, unintended interaction, from impromptu gatherings and exhibitions, video display, performative art and exhibitions and organized and informal gatherings. The outdoor corridors on the second level are also designed as un-programmed spaces, becoming zones for flexible uses and assembly between students and the faculty. 

This reinforces the idea of serendipitous activity fostering a creative environment commensurate with the curricular objective of the art school faculty.

The Studio Art Hall, developed in conjunction with Magnusson Klemencic and Associates from Seattle, Washington, received LEED Gold certification. It is designed to conserve energy in a number of ways. Studio spaces with high ceilings incorporate operable clerestory windows along with lower operable windows to allow warmer rising air to flow out at the top and cooler air to enter at the bottom. Passive cooling is achieved by providing natural ventilation in all spaces to capture daytime and nighttime prevailing wind. All classrooms have large expanses of glazing protected under the large overhanging roof to provide an abundance of natural light, cutting down on the use of artificial lighting. Solar hot water panels heat domestic water. Photovoltaic panels generate electricity fulfilling 100% of the building’s electrical plug load. Storm water and rainwater is collected and managed with zero water runoff and the storm water runoff is pretreated prior to its entry into a drywell. In short, almost all of the annual runoff volume is infiltrated to help recharge the groundwater around the site.

CONCLUSION
While individual buildings should always contribute to the urban experience, it is indeed becoming more and more important that they contribute to the sustainability of our communities. It is possible for individual buildings to be both urbanistically and environmentally sensitive with the use of intelligent strategies at the interface between exterior and interior. As seen in the examples above, the basic form of the building, its spatial arrangement and finally its building envelope can all determine how it addresses urbanism on the one hand, while working with the natural forces of water, air and light. This carefully designed balance of a flexible-use architecture with environmental sustainability and urban sensitivity is the foundation of true sustainability at a building scale.