Smart Living Building Research Program - Executive Summary

The smart living lab project is a pioneering, inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional platform that combines several fields of research related to construction technologies. It aims to be a center of national scope, recognized on an international level and involving a variety of players and institutions. One of the smart living lab’s projects is the design and construction of its own building, which will be at the cutting edge of research and best practice on sustainability. Before starting the construction of the smart living building, a preliminary research called smart living building (SLB) research program has been set up, of which this report is the executive summary. Its objective is to sum up the research findings discovered in this frame, and to outline the way they can be used as fundamental requirements into the future operational design brief.

Graphical representation of the smart living building research program

Arianna Brambilla, Vanda Carla Costa Grisel, Stefano Cozza, Endrit Hoxha, Thomas Bernard Paul Jusselme, Cédric Liardet, Amélie Zizou Gisèle Renée Poncety, Didier Albert Simon Vuarnoz

The smart living lab project is a pioneering, inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional platform that combines several fields of research related to construction technologies. It aims to be a center of national scope, recognized on an international level and involving a variety of players and institutions. One of the smart living lab’s projects is the design and construction of its own building, which will be at the cutting edge of research and best practice on sustainability. Before starting the construction of the smart living building, a preliminary research called smart living building (SLB) research program has been set up, of which this poster gives a graphical representation, meant to find a common language between the diverse disciplines involved in the subject.

2016

Responsive Systems: Light and Human Responsive Systems in Architecture

Mobasher Niqui

This thesis studies the notion of responsiveness in architectural design. It tries to make a framework for understanding the act of response in architectural body. Focusing on Light as a contextual force, it studies the way light affects the built environment and architectural body, in order to introduce a light responsive system. This light responsive system will be used to design a mediatheque in the city of Geneva. Studying a multidisciplinary thematic between architecture and building physics this study is interested primarily to the architec- tural qualities of space. In parallel, it also considers the perfor- mance and comfort metrics. Two case studies in the third chapter are based on in-situation mappings and radiation analysis. The radiation calculations are done by Diva light simulator (based on Radiance software). The case studies are ordered considering the scale that they study; Their outcomes are used for the same-scale factors in a light responsive system proposed in the fifth chapter. In the chapter four the city and the program are reduced to quanti- tative design parameters to be used in the light responsive system. The term responsiveness is widely used in different disciplines. In the first chapter after a survey on these usages in different con- texts such as biology, social science and art, this study summarises a definition of responsiveness to found a framework for a light responsive system. Focusing on climate responsive systems and particularly light, in the second chapter, different approaches to use light as a form- giver for architecture are introduced. This chapter is devoted to the 6 questions such as :What are the spatial qualities of light and how lighting concerns affect architecture and design process? For introducing a light responsive system in the third chapter two case studies in two different scales are carried out. One studying the relation of light and the public space focusing on the urban promenades and the other one studying the relationship of interior light zones and the geometry; It searches for a lighting grammar in the interior space. Chapter four is devoted to analysis of the contextual and organisa- tional design problem parameters. As this study will be used later to solve a real design problem, in this chapter the objective is to propose simplified-well-behaving models of the urban context : the city of Geneva and the program: Mediatheque for the light respon- sive system. Chapter five proposes the characteristics of a light responsive sys- tem, considering all the design problem parameters.

2012

Research Through Design: What Does it Mean for a Design Artefact to be Developed in the Scientific Context?

Jeffrey Huang, Selena Savic

The use of design artefacts in research is a debatable topic which raises important questions about the different approaches to design research and legitimate ways of knowledge production. Research through design normally involves construction of a design artefact, which is at the core of the research process. This paper will outline some characteristics of artefacts that come out of such research practices, seeking to form a base for understanding the nature of research design artefacts and their evaluation. We will examine the process of translation from the research question into the design brief, into the prototype, back to the question, back to the prototype; until the design artefact is fit as a tool for research; or is (temporarily) discarded. The artefacts produced in this way do not necessarily serve a utilitarian purpose, but provide an explicit feedback about their use and the experience they invoke. In terms of design, they are like code with a lot of debugging print statements. They possibly never leave the studio and when they do, different levels of independence from the studio setting can be identified.

STS Italia Publishing2014

Responsive Systems: Light and Human Responsive Systems in Architecture

Mobasher Niqui

2012