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The Vital Signs Project: 1996 Case Study Competition
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The Vital Signs Project: 1996 Case Study Competition
Buildings today not only have an impact on the indoor environment--on the
lives of people who live and work in them--but also on the outdoor environment, on the
very health of the planet. Architects have an opportunity to play a central role in
shaping the nation’s future in energy and environmental quality by creating buildings
that are energy-efficient, site- and climate-responsive, and a delight to inhabit.
The way our buildings are constructed, operated and maintained has a profound impact on
the health of the local and global environment. With slightly over 4 percent of the
world’s population, the United States consumes approximately 24 percent of the
world’s energy. Buildings in the United States are responsible for 38 percent of
national energy consumption and over 9 percent of world energy consumption.
The link between poor design decisions and global environmental problems is a strong one,
and greater energy efficiency remains the key to improvement in a number of environmental
concerns. Energy use linked to buildings accounts for over 50 percent of the greenhouse
gasses associated with global climate change, half of the nuclear waste and much of acid
rain. The demand for more power, and the accompanying need for new power plants, new large
scale dams, and new oil exploration and mining sites, all contribute to habitat
destruction. These considerations, coupled with the fact that buildings have long life
spans, indicate how important it is that energy efficiency and environmental awareness
become a primary concern of architects, the professionals charged with leading the
building design effort.
The Audubon Society Headquarters, New York, Croxtion
Collaborative Architects
A designer who does not comprehend the implications of her or his actions will unwittingly
contribute to environmental degradation. But what is the best way to learn about these
consequences? The Vital Signs approach encourages and promotes opportunities for
experiential learning. Buildings serve as laboratories where students can seek pertinent
lessons on the success and failure of different design approaches by testing hypotheses
through direct experience. Existing buildings hold fascinating lessons on a variety of
topics from occupant well-being to the operations of technical systems. For example, how
comfortable is life under the fritted glass of Helmut Jahn’s United Airlines terminal
in Chicago? Have the widely acclaimed energy-conserving features of the National Audubon
Society’s Headquarters performed as intended by the designers? Are the occupants
satisfied with the interior environmental qualities?
The Vital Signs Case Study Competition challenges architecture students to take a
detective’s eye to the built environment, to investigate, measure, and report on the
physical performance of existing buildings in terms of energy use, occupant well-being,
and architectural space-making. These reports will be written up as intriguing Case
Studies that will ultimately be shared with the broader architectural community and
throughout the building professions.
During the past 3 years, the Vital Signs Curriculum Materials Project has
produced background material, procedures, and guidelines to support architectural
education. Distributed to all schools of architecture in the Spring of 1996, the Vital
Signs materials contain "modular" Resource Packages
describing various physical performance topics, such as whole building energy use, the
dynamics of solar shading devices, natural ventilation, and mechanical system components.
The most innovative contribution of the packages are field protocols for the evaluation of
existing buildings, enabling students to learn through observation, survey, interviews and
direct physical measurement. These field evaluation protocols are organized at three
different levels of sophistication and detail. The first level presumes a single building
visit and involves observations, interviews, and survey techniques. Only limited
instrumentation is employed. The second level involves visits over several weeks, with
hand held instruments building on the level one exercises. The third level involves study
over one or more seasons utilizing data acquisition systems, adding time series data
collection to the procedures in the previous levels.
For more detailed information, a web page at this site provides a description of each of
the Vital Signs Resource Packages. Also, we mailed two
sets of the Resource Packages to all schools of architecture in the United States and
Canada. If you cannot find them at your school, please contact Gail Brager, the Vital
Signs Competition Advisor, via email at gbrager@socrates.berkeley.edu
to find out who at your school received the packages.
The Vital Signs project is supported by The
Energy Foundation, with additional support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Pacific Gas & Electric Utility of California
(PG&E), and the Society of Building Science Educators (SBSE). It is administered by
the Center for Environmental Design Research (CEDR) at the
University of California, Berkeley.
The purpose of the Vital Signs Case Study Competition is to encourage and reward
outstanding Case Studies of existing buildings, providing information about design intent,
building performance, and the variety of ways occupants actually experience the building.
The objectives of the 1996 Case Study Competition are to foster a pedagogic approach where
students will:
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Comments to author:cris@ced.berkeley.edu
All contents copyright (C) 1998.
Charles C. Benton.
All rights reserved. Revised: July 5, 1996