LEAFHouse Studio

College & Department

School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation

Professor

Amy Gardner
Julie Gabrielli

Semester Offered

Spring 2007

Course Description

Continuation of the University’s participation in the Solar Decathlon enterprise for the 2007 event.

The course will be taught in collaboration with ENCE 489B & F. Arch and Engr Groups formed in the course will be expected to establish clear and regular meeting times, and to report the contents of those meeting times through progress in team projects.

This project offers a unique opportunity to explore the principles of a sustainably built environment in a collaborative, interdisciplinary team structure. Students and professional team members will continue to be be exposed to the goals, ideals, and fundamental challenges of creating a solar powered, sustainably built environment, including the integration of the community and local resources. The project has been following an innovative, integrated, interdisciplinary design process.

Architectural, structural, environmental, landscape, and building systems finalization of design will continue in order to finalize the design and construction documents, construct the project, and explore permutations of LEAFHouse. The semester’s explorations will be integrated with a companion course in engineering, with fellow engineering team members, and will follow parallel tracks.

Sustainable design is very process-driven. That is, all the visible symbols of “greenness” – green roofs, photovoltaics, composting toilets – are merely unrelated gestures unless the building and its site are considered holistically, as a system. This integrated approach extends from thinking about the design problem itself to the way in which the diverse design professionals and students interact with each other.

Our approach to the semester’s work includes a strict calendar of research, development, and presentation. In general, the first portion will be devoted to the following explorations, interwoven throughout the semester.

Realization: LEAFHouse Constructed

• LEAFHouse Constructed
• LEAFHouse Prefab

Theory and Design

• Explorations of PreFab: LEAFHouse Transformed.
• Aggregation/Permutations: LEAFHouse Multiplied and Morphed

Analysis and Presentation

• Analysis: LEAFHouse Quantified (embodied energy, carbon footprint, true cost accounting)
• Graphic Materials: LEAFHouse Presented