Architecture and Space Planning.  Sustainable Development.  Green Building.  Housing and Urban Development.  Commercial and Residential Architecture.  Home Design.  Interior Design

Green Strategies

Sustainable Co-housing  Development:  Acton, Massachusetts

• Site Plan: Separation of cars from pedestrian traffic with large car free area

• Energy Conservation: Energy efficient building envelop. Many buildings with solar heat and solar domestic hot water options.

• Resource Conservation: Water conservation with low water use fixtures and appliances and in some units with gray-black water separation and composting toilets. 

• Low Toxicity: Pollution source control with materials with low volatile organic chemicals.

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Energy Conservation & Solar Energy: Washington,  Maine

The sustainable building is shaped to maximize passive and active solar heat gain in the winter. Solar heating is captured from the many south facing windows in the masonry.  A large fieldstone fireplace and a large brick stove-Russian fire place store the passive solar heat during the day and redistribute it throughout the night. Solar panels on the roof are solar water heaters that provide both the hot water for the radiant floors of the addition as well as the domestic hot water. A hot water preheating tank was built into the brick stove to use excess heat from it.  A green house works for plants and  as a wind lock.  For more info click here.

Optimized Solar Exposure: Konya, Turkey

•  Passive cooling and heating strategies are used eliminate cooling costs and reduce heating.  This is done by manipulating  building orientation & forms in response to sun azimuth & altitude angles. We used deep southern overhangs, integral sun shading devices, and strategic window placement. Thus the winter sun penetrates the windows and the summer sun is  prevented.  

• A shaded water pond on the north facade allows the summer's prevailing winds to be cooled.  The long facade of the narrow open plan allows for cool air to enter the house and then is pulled up thermodynamically through a 2 1/2 story  circulation tower.

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Solar Siphon Panels: Arlington, Massachusetts

Solar panels and careful attention to indoor air quality are part of the energy efficient design for this second floor addition. Solar siphon panels were designed to take advantage of passive solar heat gain in the winter. These panels take cooler air from the bedrooms; this air is heated by the sun in the space behind large glass panels and given back heated at the top of the bedrooms. The panels are shaded in the summer by large overhangs and by the deciduous trees to the South.

Green House Solar Heat: Medfield, MA

In the greenhouse  water columns  store heat gained passively during the day and release it throughout the night. On hot days, thermostatically controlled vents open automatically when the temperature rises above a set level. Maintenance free materials were used in the building of the green house. The roof is made of a translucent fiberglass panel, similar in the appearance to Japanese rice paper and a perfect UV screen for plants to thrive.

Green Building Design in Modern Architecture: Cambridge, MA Sustainable strategies including green roofs and solar panels

The design of the addition to this example of modern architecture uses sustainable strategies and combines the style and massing of the existing house to create a dynamic composition of forms incorporating solar panels and green roofs as an integral part of the whole.

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E-mail: fran@amacher-associates.net