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Building envelope

The All Glass Building - Is Energy Efficiency Possible?

While glass buildings continue to rise throughout our cities, the question of their sustainability remains. The market is demanding high glazing percentage for the daylight, views, and marketing potential it provides, which can present a considerable hurdle in promoting energy efficiency in modern buildings. During this session, two speakers with varying views will frame the current debate surrounding the all glass building and its place in energy efficient, sustainable design. Specific examples with different methodologies will be presented.

Close the Windows! Changing Occupant behavior with Heat Pumps and Individual Metering

Advances in building envelopes and HVAC equipment enable widespread use of air source heat pumps by many in the "Net Zero Energy" and "Passive House" movements. Steve Bluestone will report on two related items: a three year performance study of an air source heat pump system using hourly measurements (done with Henry Gifford and built above his garage) and the design and construction of his new 101 unit high performance rental building in NYC utilizing the same technology.

Minisplit Heat Pumps: Lessons from the Field

Minisplit heat pumps are now used in most high performance homes in New England. Kohta monitored eight homes built by Transformations and Marc has over sixty homes and non-residential buildings with minisplits. After a brief overview of system types, we’ll share energy use data as well as comfort and distribution studies, and cover issues with installation, sizing, setbacks, and some of the quirks of this nifty technology. Have fun with two MIT nerds!

Inside and Out: Integrated Building Facade and HVAC Design

This session provides an overview of the interactions between the building façade and HVAC systems. By distilling this subject into macro and micro level themes, we hope to broaden the understanding of what is needed to design and construct a high performing system. Integration is particularly critical when designing to the trend of highly glazed buildings required to meet increasingly stringent energy targets. While radiant HVAC strategies offer improved energy performance, they have limited peak capacities due to installation and cost restrictions. This places critical importance on measures to minimize peak envelope loads, ensuring that the more efficient radiant HVAC design strategy remains logistically viable. Using relevant project examples, we will break down building loads, explore different HVAC system strategies, and highlight the role of measurement and verification to ensure performance. Construction management and commissioning experience will inform recommendations to avoid common design and installation pitfalls.

Solar Air Heating 2.0

You think trombe walls are a relic of the 70s, right? Using extensive data from multiple case studies throughout Maine, New Hampshire & Massachusetts, including a high school, a fire station and a public works facility, this session will review the potential of modern commercial and industrial solar air heating in the Northeast. We will examine cost and performance viability with live and historical energy, temperature and air flow data as well as explore the impacts of design variations such as collector types, air flow rates, system sizes and HVAC design.

Adventures In Building Science – Multi-Family Construction

In multi-family construction it is increasingly common to get a combination of concrete and steel and curtain wall on the first floor and wood frame on the upper floors. Are we combining the worst of residential and commercial? Or are we getting the best of residential and commercial? How do you specify, design and construct these types of enclosures? How do you “compartmentalize” these units? How do you ventilate these units? How do you condition these units? Roof design and wall design options will be discussed.

The Living Building Challenge: Two Northeast Regional Case Studies

This session will delve into two wide-ranging case studies representing the few Northeast LBC projects (only 50 active LBD nationwide). The Smith College Bechtel Environmental Classroom field station building is on track to receive full certification by early 2014. The Kellogg House at Williams College, a repurposed and expanded historic building, currently in construction (Fall 2013).

Deep Energy Retrofits: Full Value Proposition

This session will explore the actual performance over the past few years of 2 completed Deep Energy Retrofits in Massachusetts which successfully achieved the ACI Thousand Homes Challenge in 2011-12. From the combined perspective of a builder and an architect experienced with a variety of strategies for achieving energy efficient homes, we will compare the approaches in these two cases with other building techniques and programs such as Energy Star, Energy Plus, Net Zero, and Passive House.