Appreciates all types of design ideas.
Good form & function should always work hand in hand but at times designs needs to be push through all types of boundaries.
There is no standing still for design,only moving forward.
MIT researchers will debut the Copenhagen Wheel - a revolutionary new bicycle wheel that not only boosts power, but can keep track of friends, fitness, smog and traffic. The Wheel can store energy every time the rider puts on the brakes, and then give that power back to provide a boost when riding uphill or to add a burst of speed in traffic. It also maps pollution levels, traffic congestion, and road conditions in real-time.
Green Lighthouse, Denmark’s first CO2 neutral public building, demonstrates that sustainable design is not a question of stuffing the building with brazen, expensive high-tech gadgets, but that it starts with good old fashioned common sense. In fact, 75% of the reduction of the energy consumption is the direct consequence of architectural design.
The building is going to serve as a showcase for sustainable building at the UN’s Climate Conference here in Copenhagen in December later this year. Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, Helge Sander states; “Everyone who has had a share in the Green Lighthouse project has every reason to be proud.
It is a stylish, exemplary, climate-friendly construction, which will help focus the attention on Danish know-how during the forthcoming climate summit. At the same time, the building can serve as inspiration to other universities and builders, while also contributing to the construction industry’s knowledge base of sustainable building solutions”.
The parties involved in the project are the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, the University of Copenhagen, the City of Copenhagen and the window producers VELUX and VELFAC.
To achieve carbon neutrality, many green design features were incorporated to reduce energy use and provide a holistic and healthy indoor environment for students and faculty. The building itself was oriented to maximize its solar resources, while windows and doors are recessed and covered with automatic solar shades to minimize direct solar heat gain inside the building. Plentiful daylight and natural ventilation are provided by means of the carefully placed VELUX skylights, Velfac windows and the generous atrium.
Finally, sensibly integrated state-of-the-art technology has been applied: heat recovery systems, photovoltaic panels, solar heating, LED lighting, phase change materials, geothermal heat are just some of the technologies that are seamlessly integrated into the building.
Architect: Christensen & Co Arkitekter Client: Danish University and Property Agency Users: Faculty of Science (30 staff / 50 daily users) Area: 950 m² (site 3000m²) Project: May 2008 Construction: October 2008 Completion: November 2009 Collaborators: Hellerup Byg (contractors) Cowi (engineering) CCO staff MC, MC, TN, MS, TB, AM Misc Partners behind project: Danish University and Property Agency, Copenhagen
MIT researchers will debut the Copenhagen Wheel - a revolutionary new bicycle wheel that not only boosts power, but can keep track of friends, fitness, smog and traffic. The Wheel can store energy every time the rider puts on the brakes, and then give that power back to provide a boost when riding uphill or to add a burst of speed in traffic. It also maps pollution levels, traffic congestion, and road conditions in real-time.
