Passive Low Energy Architecture (PLEA) Conference

Ahmedabad

Increasing food and energy self-sufficiency in residential areas is one of the key measures to reduce greenhouse gases emissions as well as to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The objective of the study is to verify the impact of building typologies and urban forms with relative high density on sunlight availability. Computational tools are employed to obtain quantifiable indicators of the potential of each variant for energy and food harvesting. Twenty five point block cases were assessed in terms of solar access by using three density and geometry parameters: plot ratio, site coverage and building height.

Seminar: University of Navarra

Spain

International Conference of Urban Climate (ICUC9)

Toulouse

UrbanizationprocessinAsiaisincreasingatanunprecedentedrate.Newtowns are built in the cities’ outskirts occupying farmlands and therefore making urban population more dependent on food produced farer away or from overseas. Therefore, the integration of farming areas as part of the urban tissue should be consideredasoneofthedesignparametersfornewresidentialdistrictsinAsian cities. The paper deals with sunlight availability in relation to urban form, density and latitude. The objective of the study is to quantify the sunlight availability in 27 caseswithaseriesofdensitiesandurbanmorphologieslocatedatthreedifferent latitudes in Asia: Singapore (1.3°N), Hanoi (21°N) and Beijing (39.9°N).

Solar DeclathonUniversity of Florida

USA

Assistant Professor Abel Tablada was invited by the Director or Master’s Degree in Environmental Design and Building Management Asst Prof Ana María Sánchez-ostiz Gutiérrez from the School of Architecture, University of Navarra to deliver a series of lectures, including a public lecture and to conduct a workshop related to the topic of Low-Carbon Architecture in the Tropics in the weekof16-20May,2015.Theworkshopwasattendedbylocalmasterstudents and by visiting students and a senior lecturer from Cardiff University. In total, 24 students – not familiar with tropical architectural and urban design – developed three schematic proposals for three sites and latitudes:

1. Nusajaya (Malaysia) 1.5° N / 103° E

2. Phnom Penh (Cambodia) 11.5° N / 104° E

3. Mariel (Cuba) 23° N / 82° W

Theworkshopobjectivewastoexploreanddesignpreliminarycityblockmassing for a new town near industrial areas for low-middle income residents to promote daylight, natural ventilation and self-sufficiency in terms of energy and food. The design process was supported by solar analysis and wind simulations.

NUSDepartmentofArchitecturejoinedtheSchoolofArchitectureofUniversity of Florida to participate in the Solar Decathlon 2015. Six students from NUS, accompanied and supervised by Dr Abel Tablada, participated in a workshop during June-July 2014 at U-Florida. The workshop was led by Assistant ProfessorBradleyWaltersfromU-Florida.DuringtheirstaytheNUSandlocal studentsattendedaseriesoflecturesandcontributedtothedesigndevelopment of the solar house.

Solar Decathlon 2015 NUS Department of Architecture joined the School of Architecture of University of Florida to participate in the Solar Decathlon 2015. Six students from NUS, accompanied and supervised by Dr Abel Tablada, participated in a workshop during June-July 2014 at U-Florida. The workshop was led by Assistant Professor Bradley Walters from U-Florida. During their staytheNUSandlocalstudentsattendedaseriesoflecturesandcontributedto the design development of the solar house.

Harvard University Graduate School of Design April 2015

Astheequatorialcity’srelationshiptoclimatebecomesanincreasingimperative; the program will research the atmospheric mediums of hot & wet architectures sited in five dense cities on the equator. Three features guide the work: saturated urbanisms, deep envelopes, and thick roofs. The focus is directed at modes of atmospheric calibration at the urban scale verlooked by traditional representation in drawing and photography. Humidity, temperature, breeze, sound, smell, rain and their impact on the city and architecture alike; from urban tobuilding,landscapetomaterial,habitationtointeriorwillexpandourrepertoire beyond the optic and iconic to the climatic and atmospheric.

03-FLATS

Singapore’spublichousingprogramme-aninclusivespacethatprioritizesfamiliesandintergenerationalliving-isarguablythemostsuccessfulintheworld.Amidst thisbackdrop,03-FLATSfollowsthedometicexperiencesofthreesinglewomenwhoareatdifferentstagesoftheirlives.Lookingfromwithineachflat,thefilmmoves between the women’s distinctively lived interiors and the ordered public spaces beyond. It records how domestic resilience might resist the ennui of mass housing, turning housing into home. 03-FLATS is a key filmic output of a research initiative led by Dr Lilian Chee (Department of Architecture, NUS). Chee conceptualised the project and made the film in collaboration with award-winning Singaporean director and filmmaker Lei Yuan Bin (13 Little Pictures) to probe how domesticity - a critical component wherein home is produced - may be viscerally represented and experientially encountered. 03-FLATS was in competition at the Busan International Film Festival (2014) and won the best ASEAN documentary at the Salaya International Documentary Film Festival (2015).

Tropical Pockets

From Classical Architecture, to Baroque, Renaissance, and later Modern Architecture,thereisanaccumulationofknowledgerecordedinwrittenaccounts, drawings as well as buildings and ruins that still stand proud up to this day. Much of these form what we know as the history of architecture—though perhaps one which revolves around the temperate region—with its established manners of representation and methods of understanding architecture.

On the other hand, close scrutiny on tropical architecture—at least in the SoutheastAsianregions—comesmuchlaterthanthatoftemperatearchitecture, probably sometime after the onset of colonisations just before the arrival of ModernArchitecturethatwouldintimeoverrodemuchoftheexistingvernacular traditions. Those constructed using traditional materials quickly perish and it does not help that in many communities building knowledge are passed verbally, rather than in drawings or writings. In contrast to drawings as a tool of designing prior to the construction of an architectural project, drawings of the vernacular architecture are often done as attempts at representing and recording by third parties, rather than by the designers or the builders.

Thispaperselectsthecriticalfewofthevernacularbuildingsthatareparticularly helpful in explaining the tropical enclosure with the prospect that the findings could be of help in understanding other strains of vernacular architecture found in the region. Eventually, by putting into question the unchallenged mode of presenting and understanding architecture predicated on the temperate conditions, it is hoped that some robustness could be injected into the presently languid discourse on tropical architecture.