Eco-Architecture at Indiana University

Eco-Architecture at Indiana University

 

Introduction

Architecture has changed over the years as much as we have changed. People are always creating magnificent structures both in size and in beauty. Architecture changes throughout history and it usually changes hand in hand with how our society changes. From caves to skyscrapers, the exponential advancement of technology has brought many great things. But just as many problems. One problem is overpopulation, causing buildings to infringe on our local environment and increasing the friction between our needs to survive and the fragile stability of our world’s ecology. This trend and threat are enough to challenge developers, architects and government agencies to lead the way in developing ecologically minded buildings, as in both design and construction materials, as well as eco-conscientious neighborhood.²² There are solutions to the problems we have created, we just have to take action.

Housing is a factor, implementing green sustainable ideas in order to better live and lessen our damage to this planet’s environment and ecology. Architects show the world the possibility of living close to nature while being efficient. Eco-architecture is an exciting architectural style that is focused on the environment and sustainability. It focuses on creating a building and space in which it prioritizes the health of the individual and the environment.² The introduction of such a style in the United States can be attributed to Frank Lloyd Wright.

He pioneered a style that was not seen favorable at the time. Wright considered nature to be the primary source for a philosophy of architecture and he discovered science in nature realizing the possibility of drawing architecture from nature.²¹ Prioritizing a sustainable green housing style could lead to a better quality of housing and be better for the environment.

Eco-architecture is starting to have a permanent place in what is considered to be modern contemporary architectural style because there has been an increase awareness that sustainable green design and human well-being are both integral elements of the building’s performance.¹⁵ It involves a lot of new technologies in order to get the most out of a building in a sustainable way. There are five key aspects of an eco-design; resource stability, ecological integrity, emulating natural ecosystems, eliminating natural debt and to meet the inherent needs of humans.²² The quality of a building has many effects on individuals who use it.

The biggest factor of eco-architecture is the abundance of lighting and windows in relation to the structure. This architectural style can be seen in the buildings that Frank Lloyd Wright designed (figures 1, 2 and 3). Focused on the abundance of windows in tangent with nature and its environment. New technologies help the building become more sustainable and greener by lowering their energy demands.

 

Figure 1 – Taliesin West, 1938

Figure 2 – Falling Water, 1936

Figure 3 – Hanna House, 1937

 

Sick Buildings

When old buildings degrade, possible toxins and chemicals seep out from the construction material. Mold and water damage are also key players in the deteriorating effects of buildings. This process causes the buildings to be designated as a ‘sick building’. Associated with sick buildings is ‘sick building syndrome.¹⁵ The term defines acute health effects that are experienced by building occupants and are linked to the time spent in buildings and for which no specific illness or underlying condition may be identified.¹⁵ The individuals who live inside the buildings might get sick due to these toxins. These sick buildings pose a threat to many individuals who depend on the building to work, study or live. The buildings might’ve been up to code when they were first built but as decades pass, they basically decompose, causing the building to become more expensive to maintain (insulation, poor electric management, lack of sunlight).

Sick building syndrome is very prevalent with buildings that have poor light quality which requires more energy to power the building, maintain stable heating/cooling and decreases the productivity of individuals working in the building. That’s why a thoughtfully designed space can increase productivity, foster a sense of community, and minimize environmental impact.¹² Indiana University is invested in improving the sustainability of its building by renovating its old ‘sick’ buildings rather than constructing new ones in their place.

There is evidence that renovation of a building has more capability to realize higher energy performance improvements when compared to new construction buildings.¹⁷ The sick building attribute has caused many movements to try and prevent buildings from reaching that point. One is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), a worldwide organization in which buildings get a rating for their design and energy saving capabilities. Indiana University is part of it. This is significant because it can better plan and design their construction so that it minimizes the negative effects on the environment while maximizing the buildings productivity.

 

Eco-Architecture at Indiana University

Indiana University is a large campus with big structural buildings that are used for classes, labs, offices and residence halls. There is a lot of attention payed to its ecological infrastructure. Indiana University has been operating for 200 years and in that span, it has seen a lot of change in its buildings and the environment around it. The attention to nature around the campus has been taken seriously for years and is a big part of the commitment of the university to make the place a healthier and welcoming place for students, faculties as well as its fauna and flora inhabitants.  But it wasn’t until the last decade in which buildings at Indiana University started to get revamped and updated to be more efficient and provide a quality environment for those who use the buildings. As the university advances to the future, so does its buildings and its construction.

The LEED program is a rating system released by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) and is the most popular and widely used green building rating system.¹ People are spending more time inside working with screens, interacting with artificial light and pay little attention at the negative effects of this when creating buildings. There is a need to mitigate the negative effects of this artificial setting through some form of contact with the natural world.¹² This contact with the natural world is what eco-architecture is committed to do as well as the LEED project. The LEED system focuses on three pillars of sustainability and attributes points to buildings who manage to complete certain check marks on the three categories. The three categories are: Social, Economic, Environmental. The environmental pillar accounts for anything related to energy, materials, waste and pollution. Water usage falls under the environmental/economic category and environmental quality and well-being fall under the economic/societal pillar.¹

Energy saving comes from a balance of artificial light and natural light. Daylighting alone can reduce total energy use by as much as 25-30% making it the most cost-effective investments for energy and carbon savings world-wide.⁶ Indiana University LEED buildings take this into account and that’s why most new building projects have more windows and higher amounts of open space for natural light to come in. Therefore, one of the biggest topics of eco-architecture revolves around finding the best way to increase natural penetrating light while keeping low sustainability in order to make the building as efficient and eco-friendly as possible. Having natural light via an abundance of windows and building design improves the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) of the building and the productivity of those who work and study in the building. Appropriate lighting quality can increase productivity and performance, decrease eyestrain and fatigue, and enhance an organization’s opportunity for success.¹⁹ The old buildings at IU that are not LEED certified will therefore have a poor IEQ. According to a paper by Singh et. al, having a poor IEQ can negatively affect occupants’ physical health (asthma exacerbation and respiratory allergies) through poor air quality, extreme temperatures, excess humidity, and insufficient ventilation and psychological health (depression and stress).²⁰

Updating buildings will promote productivity due to the welcoming environment of the building and its abundance of natural light while being efficient. That’s why the most noticeable characteristics of LEED buildings is their abundance of windows and penetrating natural light. Windows that admit daylight and provide an ample and pleasant view can dramatically affect mental alertness, productivity, and psychological well-being.¹² Therefore, light is very important when thinking about building eco-friendly buildings.

Currently, I.U. has 11 buildings with a gold certification and 3 silver certified buildings. Figure 5 shows a gold certified building, figure 6 shows a silver certified building (the only science research building) and figure 7 shows an non-certified building. It renovated, and a large glass open room was added which improves the IEQ of the building, but its roots are still old and thus fall under the ‘sick building’ category. This building also demands a lot of energy due to its size and the large number of laboratories. One can see the difference in architectural style between these three buildings. The gold certified has a clear abundance of windows that allow lots of penetrating natural light and its classroom and offices have access to natural light as well as good artificial lighting. The silver rated building has a lot of windows but because it’s a research laboratory building, it needs a lot of energy which is why it’s not gold certified. All these technicalities are what makes a building have its wow factor, both in aesthetics but also on its sustainability.

Figure 4 – Pillars of LEED

 

Figure 5 – LEED Gold certified building (Global and International Studies Building)

 

Figure 6 – LEED Silver certified building (Multidisciplinary Science Building II)

 

Figure 7 – Non-LEED certified building( Biology Building)

 

Future Directions

The impact of eco-architecture does have flaws in the short term. It’s not cheap. It takes a lot of planning and money to make effective green sustainable buildings. This affects Indiana University and how much money the university has to spend on renovations and constructions while trying to not raise tuition rates. Indiana University believes that the cost of today will reduce the cost of tomorrow. Renovations and constructions of new buildings are very costly and it’s to no surprise that I.U. has spent millions of dollars to renovate buildings. Many students would see this spending as wasteful since it’s not going to scholarships and it raises tuition rates.

The economic stress that these renovations have on I.U.’s budget could be justified because these renovations will ultimately improve buildings. It decreases energy demand while increasing air quality, light quality and its sustainability. It will have a positive lasting effect on the health and productivity of students, faculty and maintenance. Prospective buildings at I.U. aim to follow LEED guidelines. Figure 8 shows a newly built building that is pending gold certification. Figure 9 and figure 10 are images of new buildings that will be built at I.U. in which they are designed with the LEED guidelines in mind. The next step for I.U. is to find ways to fund their projects and involve the community of Bloomington.

There are many ways in which the town of Bloomington can become involved with eco-architecture. With the increase of population, there are a lot of projects around Bloomington that involve housing and if these projects focused on sustainability, they would decrease the cost of operations in the long run as well as decrease their energy consumption. There is also a lot of new interest in re-purposing old buildings and dilapidated park grounds, mines and quarries. Many aspects of eco-architecture are beneficial and it’s not new. It just caught up with technology.

 

“Building becomes architecture only when the mind of man consciously takes it and tries with all his resources to make it beautiful, to put concordance, sympathy with nature, and all that into it. Then you have architecture.”

-Frank Lloyd Wright

 

Figure 8 – Gold status pending (Luddy Hall / Informatics)

Figure 9 – Proposed building by the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture and Design (possible gold certification)

Figure 10 – Proposed North Housing Dormitory (possible gold certification)

 

 

 

References

1. Awadh Omair. 2017. “Sustainability and green building rating systems: LEED, BREEAM, GSAS and Estidama critical analysis.” Journal of Building Engineering, Volume 11, Pages 25-29, ISSN 2352-7102, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2017.03.010.
2. Brebbia, Carlos Alberto. Eco-Architecture V: Harmonisation between Architecture and Nature. WIT Press, 2014.
3. Dutton, Thomas (1996). “Second Nature: On the Social Bond of Ecology and Architecture” in Reconstructing architecture: critical discourses and social practices (0-8166-2808-4, 978-0-8166-2808-7).
4. “Ecology.” Landscape Architecture, vol. 100, no. 10, 2010, pp. 42–52. JSTOR, jstor.org/stable/44794315.
5. “Ecology in Practice: Environmental Architecture as Good Design.” Building Green: Environmental Architects and the Struggle for Sustainability in Mumbai, by Anne Rademacher, 1st ed., University of California Press, Oakland, California, 2018, pp. 40–64. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt2204r4v.7.
6. J. Gago, T. Muneer, M. Knez, H. Köster,
7. Natural light controls and guides in buildings. Energy saving for electrical lighting, reduction of cooling load, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 41, 2015, Pages 1-13, ISSN 1364-0321, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032114006777
8. Falling Water, Photograph by Robert P Ruschak, courtesy of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.
9. Fisk William J. 2000. “Health and productivity gains from better indoor environments and their relationship with building energy efficiency.” Annual Review of Energy and the Environment 25 (1): 537–66. https://doi.org/10.1146 /annurev.energy.25.1.537.
10. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West. Licensed under CC BY 2.0. Image © Flickr user cmichael67.
11. Hanna House, Frank Lloyd Wright, stanford.edu.
12. Hobstetter, David. “Daylighting and Productivity: A Study of the Effects of the Indoor Environment on Human Function.” The Space Place, 29 Aug. 2018, thespaceplace.net/daylighting-and-productivity-a-study-of-the-effects-of-the-indoor-environment-on-human-function/.
13. Indiana University Images, https://cpf.iu.edu/capital-projects/leed-projects/gold-projects/gisb.html.
14. “Indiana University Bloomington Bloomington, IN, US.” Indiana University Bloomington | Scorecard | Institutions | STARS Reports, 2 Mar. 2018, reports.aashe.org/institutions/indiana-university-bloomington-in/report/2018-03-02/.
15. Mohan, J. “Impact of Indoor Environment Quality on Sick Building Syndrome in India LEED Certified Buildings.” (2012).
16. Rao, Vivek. “Utilities Analysis Finds Science Buildings Use Most Electricity, and Other Key Takeaways.” Indiana Daily Student, 1 May 2019, idsnews.com/article/2019/05/utilities-analysis-finds-science-buildings-use-most-electricity-and-other-key-takeaways-iu.
17. Rastogi Ankush, Jun-Ki Choi, Taehoon Hong, Minhyun Lee. 2017. “Impact of different LEED versions for green building certification and energy efficiency rating system: A Multifamily Midrise case study.” Applied Energy, Volume 205, Pages 732-740, ISSN 0306-2619,
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19. Samani Sanaz A.“The Impact of Indoor Lighting on Students’ Learning Performance in Learning Environments: A knowledge internalization perspective.” International Journal of Business and Social Science, Volume 3, No. 24. 2012
20. SinghAmanjeet,Matt Syal, Sue C. Grady, and Sinem Korkmaz. 2010. “Effects of Green Buildings on Employee Health and Productivity.” American Journal of Public Health 100, 1665_1668, https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2009.180687
21. Stuart, Kristopher Mark. “On architecture, nature, and man (Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis I. Kahn).” (1993) Master’s Thesis, Rice University. https://hdl.handle.net/1911/13790.
22. Udomiaye, Emmanuel. (2018). ECO-FRIENDLY BUILDINGS: THE ARCHITECT’S 6. 14-26.