Pre-Session Activities
Pre-session activities were conducted before the class every week. The activity was a reflection on given article, video, talks, etc. Below is the complete list of the activities.
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Week 1 Pre-Session: course outline, introduction
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Week 2 Pre-Session Reflection on Amory Lovins's TED talk
My reflection:
Yes, we need a to reinvent a new fire. It's a great initiative from Amory Lovin to propose a plan for a 40 year energy development planning. Renewable energy is the key to secure our future energy supply. Growing population will certainly affect the escalating magnitude of the world's energy consumption. While fossil fuel as our primary energy source is getting depleted over time, renewable energy sources i.e. sun light, wind, sea current, etc. will always be available all the time. Some says renewable energy initial cost is still too high due to its early technological stage. I believe once it has become a massively produced commodity, the price will get more affordable. Let's reinvent fire.
Josh Armistead replied:
I wonder what you think about Australia's love of cars Rachmat. I remember seeing so many motor bikes in Indonesia and smaller cars. When Lovins talks about 2/3 or a cars enery used in propelling the weight of the car it seems to make sense to encourage smaller cars and motorbikes. Safety is the first argument against bikes but it seems to be a more practical solution than keeping large road blocking cars with less emitting fuel.
I replied:
Hi Josh, yes in Indonesia, number of motorbikes is enormous. However, this doesn’t change the rapidly growing automobiles. Traffic jam is everywhere in Indonesia’s big cities. Road infrastructure simply doesn’t cope with number of operating vehicles.
From my point of view, Australia is almost the same with the US in terms of its geographical settings. It’s a huge continent with vast road networks. Therefore cars are mostly preferred as a way of transport from A to B. Since Australia is not as dense as Indonesia, its infrastructure can still handle the amount of operating cars. Although cars are not efficient in terms of energy usage and financial perspective. And yes, smaller and lighter vehicles means more efficient energy usage. Furthermore, it can save space required (please see attached image).
Of course the most ideal means of transport will be something similar to what’s now being developed in masdar city. High volume of people movement is managed very very efficiently. It’s public (anyone can use it) yet personal (you can set your specific destination, there is no route), it’s highly energy efficient (small and light in size and electric-powered), highly sustainable (electricity generated from renewable energy source). You can have a look in more details here:
Thanks.
Kathryn Burrough replied:
Wow Rachmat, that certainly is something! The transportation possibilities of the future are limitless, it's pretty exciting to see where we might be heading. Hopefully we learn here in Australia that that future is not one of cars sooner rather than later!
Josh Armistead replied:
Thanks Rachmat
That image is great. I've heard a lot about Masdar City. There is something similar in China that Arup has a lot to do with (though it's more residential focused). I believe Masdar is a technology and research city that houses its students and employees? . Though the Eco City in China (Dongtan) has stalled it is very interesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongtan
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Week-3 Pre-Session Reflection on “Five year energy time bomb threatens the UK” by Andy Pearson
Energy security has been a widely discussed issue, not only in the UK. Fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas are running out over time. It is time to shift from non-renewable energy sources to renewable energy ones.
The article indicates the urgent necessity of UK shift to renewable energy is mainly to secure the power supply as their reserves of coal, oil and gas will run out in five years. This logic is not fully acceptable. This kind of logic suggests that if a country has hundreds of years of coal/oil reserves, it doesn’t need to change its energy development direction to renewable energy due to their abundant fossil fuel reserves. Meanwhile, fossil fuels are great source of CO2 and large contributor to global warming.
A more appropriate logic is to see what impacts an option will cause compare to the other options and how bad the impacts are. Energy shifting from non-renewable to renewable ones should be driven by understanding and awareness of how the decision today could shape the long-term sustainability of the planet (and humanity). It’s not only about energy security, it’s about energy sovereignty and sustainability. It’s also not only about meeting the demand but also efforts to reduce the demand on energy by different approaches possible (technology, policy, etc.)
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Week-4 Pre-Session Reflection on Dr. Jessica Green TED Talks “We’re covered in germs. Let’s design for that”
Ecosystems interact with ecosystems. Jessica Green proposes an idea to design microbial ecosystems in the built environment. She found the variety of microbial ecosystems in different functions of space within a building. This finding gives an additional dimension to the way we design buildings. For example, a passive design strategy not only a good choice design strategy but also a good decision from health perspective as well. Jessica Green called this approach as bioinformed design, and can be applied to any design field, not only architecture.
This idea of bioinformed design is relevant to other concept established earlier called biomimicry or biomimetics. It is an approach to innovation that uses nature’s pattern and strategies to achieve sustainable solutions to human problems.
Here is another TED talks on biomimicry: https://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_biomimicry_in_action?language=en
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Week-5 Pre-Session Reflection on Josh’s House Video Episode 13: Performance
This episode of Josh's houses series talks about the data and numbers in relation to house sustainability performance. For example, the temperature is expected to be between 18 to 28 degrees. The house doesn't have heater nor air conditioning yet it's able to achieve a comfortable temperature. In terms of energy, it's actually producing more energy than it uses. It's also highly efficient in terms of gas and water consumption.
Josh house's campaign is a very great initiative and a powerful way of persuading people to design and build a better house. For those who doesn't really care too much about the environment, financial savings as a result of better performing house can be used to encourage them. And the data speak in itself about this economic achievement.
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Week-6 Pre-Session Activity: Group Research
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Week-7 Pre-Session Activity: Group Research
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Week-8 Pre-Session Activity: Group Research
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Week-10 Pre-Session Activity on Malay Dave’s Article “Chasing ZED – Once the holy grail, but are ‘zero carbon’ homes enough?
Malay argues that in most cases, Zero Energy Development (ZED) term refers to zero net energy and zero carbon emission merely during a built environment's operation. This understanding is a misleading concept, knowing that it doesn't cover the total energy and carbon emission for the whole building's life cycle (cradle to grave). Therefore, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an integral part of ZED.
An interesting view Malay presents in his writing is to think holistically. Developing ZED is not only about zero net energy and zero carbon. This approach is heavily related to an eco-technical logic of sustainable architecture (Guy & Farmer 2001). If the definition of ZED is limited to net energy and zero carbon, a huge luxurious house can always be converted into a ZED building without taking into account its ethical sides. By this point, Malay suggests another different sustainability logic as a point of view: eco-social. Malay also notes that high-performance building doesn't always have good performance on extinguishing condensation, mould, VOC and other dangerous materials. This is an eco-medical logic considered in sustainability. In addition, regenerative/restorative design, positive development as well as the idea of fixing the environment give another perspective of seeing sustainability (eco-centric logic). Malay summarizes with a strong point of changing our paradigm of energy-carbon duopoly surrounding ZED and sustainability into a more comprehensive view and sensible center of the discourse.
The article, however, misses eco-aesthetic and eco-cultural aspect. These two logics are rather subjective but doesn't mean they are less important. Living Building Challenge, for example, has included beauty as one of its main criteria for sustainability. In relation to eco-cultural, we may need to look at a more localized, well-adapted built environment to its own physical and cultural characteristic as another way of achieving sustainability. This is something we find in vernacular architecture, which may be much more sustainable compared to a modern building with a high rated green certification.
References:
Dave, M 2014, 'Chasing ZED – Once the holy grail, but are ‘zero carbon’ homes enough?', How to Rethink Building Materials, pp. 80 - 81
Guy, S & Farmer, G 2001, ‘Reinterpreting Sustainable Architecture: The Place of Technology’, Journal of Architectural Education, vol.54 no.3, pp. 140-148
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Week-11 Pre-Session Activity on Mat Hope’s article “How much of China's emissions is the rest of the world responsible for?”
The article is a very interesting approach in the way we observe and judge CO2 emissions caused by China’s growing economy. Are they fully responsible for largest emissions produced by the country? Well, the answer is to some extent, yes, but it’s not only their responsibility. It’s also the responsibility of other parts of the world buying manufacture goods from China.
Nevertheless, if the emissions from exports are removed, China is still leading in terms of total emissions produced. No matter how the data are calculated, China is still the largest contributor to world’s emissions. What’s dangerous is that the growing economy of China plays a significant role in increasing its citizen’s lifestyle. The massive population combined with increasing lifestyle, added by huge manufacturing industries and its role as the centre of world’s waste incineration will just make the situation worse.
Knowing these facts, it is unsurprising that the climate change mitigation and the future of this planet are heavily relied on the choices that China makes.
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Week-12 Pre-Session Activity on Prof. Deo Prasad’s article “Are we ready for zero carbon buildings?”
This article by Prof. Deo Prasad is questioning our progress on zero carbon buildings. Achieving zero carbon buildings is not as simple as it looks in theory. There are a lot of different factors surrounding the development of zero carbon buildings, economically, socially and sometimes, politically. The key is to bring all of stakeholders involved to work together and synergise. That’s why commitment of governments, individuals, researchers, and business world is very essential in securing a positive collaboration.
The good thing is, zero carbon buildings now are making economic sense. It is a good sign to the future development of zero carbon building, that it’s getting more affordable and it gives more financial benefits rather than conventional building construction. In fact, if the trends continue, zero carbon building will be the conventional building at some point in the future.
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Week-13 Pre-Session Activity: Presentation Preparation
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These pre-sessions activities were a good way of demonstrating analytical and observation skills on other’s view. These activities were also useful to develop discussions as instruments of knowledge exchange among students.
