Architecture and the built environment account for more than 30% of all energy consumed by human beings, and 26% of all greenhouse gases produced, with documented repercussions on climate patterns and air quality. These usage patterns are expected to grow in coming decades especially as record heat debilitates communities around the world, leading to increased adoption of mechanical air-conditioning. Despite the progress of renewable energy transitions away from burning fossil fuels, rapid adoption of AC (in countries that are fortunate enough to afford it) stands to substantially increase global building energy consumption as the technology is more widely adopted. As the planet continues to warm, summers will become ever more intolerable, and in many cases life-threatening in regions with the highest temperatures. Meanwhile, global initiatives, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, seeks to curb carbon emissions to manage terrestrial warming. To reduce carbon emissions and simultaneously mitigate dangerous temperatures, new design approaches are sorely needed for the built environment. The Evaporative Cooling Partitions project (ECP) is an exploration of passive cooling methods believed to have first originated hundreds of years ago in the Middle East and Asia.
Building on a niche area of passive neo-archaic building research, this project seeks to explore how this ancient cooling technology might be reintroduced, modernized and integrated in modern building. The aim ECP project was to substantiate the technology with proof of concept scaled prototypes and explore how such a technology could be meaningfully reintroduced into building practices today.
The project was undertaken in three steps:
1) Research, precedent and literature review.
2) Ideation, prototyping and technical evaluation.
3) Speculative visualization.
The project was funded by university sources.
In the design embodiment conveyed in this Green Good Design Award entry, the individual non-load bearing column prototypes are 3D-printed in interlocking, stacking sections of porcelain and clay, and fired un-glazed to enable water to pass through their walls and evaporate. The water source for the columns could come from a variety of sources. Here it is presented with a rooftop cistern for a combination of gray water from the dwelling and sporadic rain if available. Water flow would be controlled by a master faucet (not pictured). Rhino Grasshopper software was used to explore wall surface texturing of the column modules to help control and increase rates of water evaporation by modulating the outer surface area. Prototypes made with a WASP Clay 3D printer were filled with sand and water and tested using a FLIR infrared camera to measure air temperatures and a humidity chamber to measure evaporation rates. Simultaneously, alternatives to kiln-fired ceramics were explored employing emerging biomineralization techniques. These have not yet been tested. The final visualized system, presented in a “Miesian” pavilion, is set in an arid warm climate such as the American southwest or similar global climates. It is also presented in conjunction with other passive cooling techniques such as shading, brise-soleil and methods of creating cross ventilation, including with electric fans.
Category:Green TechnologyYear:2025Location: Blacksburg, Virginia, USAArchitects:Brook Kennedy, Stefan Al, Georg Reichard, Saeed Sakhdari, Ilan Farahi, Mohammed Ali, and Aditi Hadkar, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USAClient:Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USAPhotographers:Saeed Sakhdard and Ilan Farahi
